Secrets

When I moved to New York I promised myself that I would be honest with people that I knew and met, and more honest to myself. I've worked on this to some extent, but every now and again I find myself saying something...or not saying something that I later reflect upon and question why I said or omitted that something.

Emily always tells people, when introducing me (and by introducing me, introducing the stories that surround my existence), that I am an exaggerator--that there is always truth to my narratives, but that she never quite knows the extent of those truths. Its something that I've done as long as I can remember, and I suppose one could analyze it and say "Well you know, her father was a pathological liar," or "She's from a broken home," perhaps that is true, but the fact of the matter is is that I am simply a story-teller, I am a creator of fictions and of worlds beyond my own, any attempt at explanation comes up short and is irrelevant.

As a child I had a hard time distinguishing between reality and the world I invented around me. I credit it to an overactive imagination. When I was three, Michael Jackson was my imaginary friend and he had to have a seat at the dinner table. I would pitch a fit and deplore anyone that dare took his seat. When my dad left, I invented another world in which mystical and terrifying things did actually exist, but only I could see them or hear them. I escaped the real and really intense trials and tribulations of my ten year old self and fled into a world that I controlled, manipulated, loved.

As an adolescent I no longer invented worlds for myself to live in. But I expounded upon the one in which I was present. I played out the story lines in my head with the people that surrounded me. With ease, rehearsed lines, that I had practiced a million times and perfected in my mind, would roll of my tongue.

As an adult, my audience has mostly been myself. I create narratives to justify my actions, to provide excuses, to yield explanations. I think sometimes that it is much easier to be honest to others than it is to be honest to myself. If I ever am to be able to answer the questions that have been plaguing me so as of late, I need to be utterly, painfully, excruciatingly honest to myself.

I am no liar. I am an inventor, a creator, a story-teller, an omitter, an adult with the same overactive imagination I had as a child. What I say is truth, or at least truth as I experience it because we all create our own realities.

In the spirit of honesty and truthfulness, here's a small list of secrets I'd like to divulge.

1. Sometimes I really want to throw away all ideas of grandeur and saving the world and open a small bakery and help my neighbors get happy and fat on baked goods.
2. When I am not thinking about opening a bakery, I am thinking about running away to Montana, buying some land and starting a farm, cows and all.
3. I am really terrified of men and the potential physical, mental and emotional harm and duress they have the ability to cause.
   
4. As an adult, I unconsciously bite my lips and chew my mouth to shit when I am stressed or nervous. When I was little I pulled my hair and all my eyelashes out.
   
5. I really really miss Atlanta. But for some reason I think that I can't go back, that going back would be admitting I failed.