When I was nine years old, I started testing the waters of truth. I would walk down to the grocery store when my Mom asked me to go get milk and in addition, I would buy a can of coke and an Oh Henry bar. I would sneak them into my bedroom, curl up under my sheets and read old Trixie Beldon novels all the while slowly sipping the fizzy beverage and picking peanuts one by one out of the candy bar. I wasn’t lying about anything, but I wasn’t being truthful.
When I was 11, I tried my hand at the other end of the spectrum: stealing. I snuck into my teachers classroom at lunch and stole a jujube from her top desk drawer. I felt so horrible that I told my parents that night what I had done, and had to write an apology letter.
Sometime between the ages of 11 and 14 I found the middle ground – the lie – and got pretty comfortable with it. To this day, my parents call me the little boy that cried wolf (don’t worry about the gender difference) because I’ve ‘fibbed’ to them so much they don’t know when I am telling the truth or not.
I wouldn’t call myself a pathological liar. I have no problem owning up to the truth and dealing with consequences. I just find the truth to be so unexciting. I lie about things all the time. My name. My country of origin. My weight. My plans for the night. I ALWAYS lie when someone asks me “what are you wearing”. I lie about what I want to be when I grow up depending on who asks. I lie about how I got all of my scars (mostly from roller-blading accidents around the age of ten, not from light sabre fights). I lie about what I feel like eating for dinner (always Mexican), about what my fears are (dark water – that’s it), about my favourite movie (it’s not Star Wars, it’s Big Fish), and I lie whenever someone asks me at a club what I do for work (“I write speeches for the Mayor’s wife to give at their dinner parties”). But I take pride in knowing that I can honestly say I have never lied on this blog.
Oh, sure, I omit all the time. But that’s not to protect or entertain myself, that’s because I care about other people’s reputations more than my own and wouldn’t want to taint anyone’s name.
Lately, I have noticed that I’ve become a lot worse at lying. Not because I’m a bad liar, but because what goes around comes around and I know what it feels like now and have become, dare I say, human.
So, I’ve decided to come clean. Five lies that I started telling when I was 14 years old that I just don’t feel like maintaining any more. What better place to confess than on the internet?!
5. “I am not a typical girl”
Lie. I am, in fact, a psycho bitch – like all women. I am insanely jealous and I fall in love very easily. Just this past weekend I threw a full can of Budweiser at a boys head from my apartment window – luckily for him, I have horrible aim. I’m not nearly as nonchalant about hurt feelings as I tell people I am. I will staple your picture to a tree and shoot it until you cease to exist. I am a Scorpio, afterall. Also, I am single. Any takers? (Okay, maybe my crazy is not typical of the female race… I don’t want to give all of you a bad name…)
4. “I don’t believe in the gym”
Lie. I love going to the gym. I just don’t go. Because I’m lazy and feel like I’m past all hope. Also because I don’t know how to use any of the equipment and have really large blood vessels that make me turn really red and look like I’m about to fall over and die. Also because running in spandex for 45 minutes on “high intensity” gives me a camel toe. And because I don’t see a difference right away and this is SO FRUSTRATING. Ergo, I say I don’t believe in the gym so that my lack of gym-going is simply a statement as opposed to a failure.
3. “I dirtbike”
Lie. I used to ride on the back of dirtbike[s] a lot. In no way does this make me capable of managing my own. Let alone a 250. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I can talk you through the procedure until the cows come home. I know how. I just don’t do it. Ever. I have a picture of 15 year old me sitting on one in the garage, and I liked the way it looked. Obviously, then, I took up an imaginary sport. Because that’s what I do.
2. “I used to date that NHL player”
Lie. Once, when I was 14, we kissed at a house party after I had pounded a 40 of Old English. I felt used and wanted more credit so took the liberty of making up my own story. Because that’s what I do. Funny enough, this lie has survived ten years. It survived even after kissing hockey players became the least of my worries (Ryan Kesler, if you waste my time with a kiss, I will be furious). It has survived so long that I actually forgot it wasn’t true. Until I ran into him after a game at the Roxy and was like “OH MY GOD, HI!” and he was all “Hi… Who are you?” and I was like “Oh, we made out when you played Juniors and I was 14″ and he was like “was it love?” and I was like “…obviously…. not” and walked away. Even funnier, is that later in life I did end up dating a hockey player who ended up playing for the same team this guy used to and just three days ago he was like “oh, it’s the Alumni party coming up, you’ll know someone there *winky face*” and I was all in my head oh shoot, is that lie still circulating? I have to do something about this. Which actually was the entire inspiration for this post.
1. “I chew tobacco”
….Just kidding. This one is totally true. But it’s a confession never-the-less. Because it’s gross. Though maybe not as gross as me using the word ‘camel-toe’ earlier…
And there you have it. The Anchors & Freedom confessional. Now that we’re all best friends here, you should obviously leave me an annon comment telling me what your biggest confession is. Like, this one time, I killed my hamster because he tried to run out of the bathroom when I was cleaning his cage and I slammed the door on him and he got squished…. oops (RIP Yoyo).
xo & yw
“. Or I could have just flirted like I usually do, despite the awkwardly buttoned coffee covering cardigan. But no, I couldn’t think straight because I was so mad at myself for not remembering he had a face that was nice to look at.
