Let me begin by saying that I believe honesty is important. Being honest is part of my faith, part of my upbringing, part of who I want to become and how I want to improve myself. I have a dilemma however, sometimes I hate being honest.
This weekend I was invited to celebrate a brand new marriage. Setting aside the little voice in the back of my head that whispered ‘is a divorced person bad luck at a wedding?’, setting aside the ‘I don’t have anything to wear’ thoughts, setting aside the musings about how to graciously say ‘no I don’t want to try and catch the bouquet’, I went. Everything was lovely and everyone was enjoying themselves.
Honesty’s dilemma kicks in when I run into people whom I haven’t seen or talked to in a while who don’t really know me and yet want to know what the latest news is on my ‘struggles’. The general conversation goes like this after the greetings… they get a solemn look on their faces and ask ‘How are you doing?’ I know what they mean, I know what narrow topic they are wanting to converse about, but I really don’t know how to honestly answer that question. How am I ‘doing’…what? Surviving? Earning a living? Getting through my day? Preventing myself from imploding? Enjoying the fresh basil in my backyard?
I want to be kind, I want to be truthful, I want to be polite, but I don’t want to discuss my personal heartache at a celebration.
If it’s not obvious here are some reasons why…
1 – Sometimes it feels like reliving the painful experience to share it – who wants to do that?
2 – Sometimes people feel terrible and then I have to be the one ending up comforting them – who wants to do that?
3 – Sometimes it’s just easier to put on a happy face and be in denial – I’m o.k. with that, but is it honest?
4 – Sometimes I don’t feel sad or bad or bitter or sorry for myself so why should I try to have a painful conversation when I’m feeling good?
5 – Sometimes I have other ideas (cooking, writing, my new job, gospel topics etc.) that I’m thinking about and I would prefer to discuss something interesting.
6 – Sometimes I’m just plain sick of rehashing news about the same old boring ‘trials’ in my life.
I wish I was better at focusing only on the good, or that I could shift the conversation to more pleasant topics, but I usually get sucked into being honest when you ask and I end up sharing the cliff notes version of the trials of my life even though it won’t be a conversation I’ll enjoy.
So I might avoid being social, I might seem callus and indifferent, I might try to ask you about your life instead, but I’ll most likely tell you what you want to hear. I would like to be better at finding a topic of mutual interest, but that requires effort, interest and patience and sometimes I lack all those so I would love it if you would tell me a joke, make me laugh, bring up something – any topic that will leave us both uplifted by the conversation. Honestly, wouldn’t you prefer that too?
