38

38 Imagine you could stand on a rooftop and send a message to everyone below you; what would you say? (04/04/2023)

"you can lie to everyone but yourself"

My dad used to tell me that a lot. I was a naughty kid and I would often lie about the amount of hours I played video games and the money I spent on Mcdonald's. I would save up lunch money and starve at school so that I could buy a Big Mac meal combo with fries and coke every few days. Every morning, they would give me a reusable bottle of water and I would dump the water on the plants in the park on the way home because I didn't feel thirsty. I lied about all those things. My parents knew I was lying, they just didn't have the proof to prove I was guilty. I would act obedient in front of them but be a naughty kid whenever I was alone or outside of their view, which was most of the time.
Fast forward to now. I am not living with my parents anymore and I am way more independent. There is no reason for me to lie anymore, I can just go to the store and eat all the Haribo Coca Col gummies to my heart’s content and nobody would shout at me for the being unhealthy. Nobody will remind me to run almost everyday or study every night. No parents, no teachers, no elders to lie to.
Yet, I have been lying the whole time, to myself. I have been hiding many uncomfortable truths from myself because all those moments feel too embarassing, too painful to think about. I just want to live in blissful ignorance. However, I also want to grow as a person, and part of that requires me to look into my own past without any bullshit to sugarcoat the truth. I have experienced bad things in life, and I have done my fair share of bad things unto others as well. Many of them I hid away somewhere deep in my mind so that I don't think about them on a day-to-day basis. Soon, I will uncover them no matter how many tears roll down my eyes as I write about them.