Cringefest 2019

Why go back to it? I am writing this from a time when I do not feel scared or harmed or broken. Still I feel that it is necessary to retrieve something, or someone, who was lost there without either of us knowing. You see, I did not exist then, and she did not or could not or would not see.

What she could not see is that lies were not protecting her, but obfuscating herself from herself, acculturating her to lies so that when other people lied to her she could so easily be lied to, because being lied to was normal.

Her mother lied. For a long time, her sister lied, though she doesn't lie so much any more. Her brother didn't lie but he hid himself away, so that she was never exposed to his truthfulness. Her father told the truth until he stopped talking. Many of her partners lied, but not all of them.

The truth is you can spend a whole life lying to yourself and other people. In some ways it's a victory to know it after a few decades instead of all of them. Still it leaves an awful lot of mess, an awful lot of loss, so much regret. That girl who everyone said had so much potential -- did she exist? Can anything built on a foundation of lies have potential? Or does that foundation render the potentiality itself a lie?




I just spent eight years not being myself. Not long before that, it was a decade. I think I have been myself from the ages of 0 to 8, from approximately 22 to 23, and again from around 31 to present. Because this year I am focusing on the gain and not the gap, I will count nearly one third of 32 and a half years as a win. Also there were certain moments when in relationship with certain people that I felt wholly myself.


Remember lying belly-down on the bed laughing? Those moments are about as real as it ever gets.



I love being in school.

I hope to be a teacher.