HONESTY MONTH: DAY 21: “Tell the truth, or someone will tell it for you.”― Stephanie Klein
Every time I read this quote, I think of children and how honest they are. They are taught to lie. It is not a skill we are born with. It is an acquired thing.
That is why they are an embarrassment to their parents at times. They will ask questions when it is not socially appropriate, although few people ever get mad at them. Their natural curiosity is not yet trained to know when to ask and when it might be better not to ask.
When I was 4 or 5, my father and I were out in an old truck he had for a few years. I loved that truck! I still have a great fondness for pre-1950s trucks. They were so cool and so masculine. And I was such a daddy’s girl. I felt very special going in the truck with him. I always tagged along, even to go to the dump. Did not matter to me.
Anyway, he had a quart bottle of beer he was drinking from…(ah! The good old days!)…and he got pulled over for speeding. I did not have any idea about what was happening, but he put the cap on his beer and rolled it under his seat. I was very good and quiet until the cop got all the way up to the window and they were talking and then I asked, too loudly of course, “Daddy why did you put your beer under the seat?”
Later I fully understood that I was not trained well yet in being deceptive to cops. I got better at it, let me tell you!
Defense mechanisms like dishonesty are something we learn as we get older. I became a great story teller in no time! But I like that story, because it reminds me that there was a time when I was still naïve and trusting. It did not last long. But it existed for a moment in time when I was a little girl.
Later on I became so jaded and hardened to things that happened around me. I truly believe it was always like that. But it wasn’t. Not with my dad, anyway. We had a good relationship and a great bond when I was little. It went away as we both grew older and more ensconced in our respective addictions. But on that day, I was so happy to ride around in his big old truck with him. A nice memory when I read this quote.
Dolphin Hug 