I’m Fine and Other Half-Truths of Where I am Now
ruth is like a prism.
Depending on how
you look at it, you
might see nothing or a rainbow. It can blind you or simply distort your vision. Sometimes you have to look away.
One day during a miserable time in my life, I was wandering around a neighborhood store when I saw a small, gray stone with the word Truth painted on it. I picked it up. The oval fit perfectly in my palm, and something shifted in me. I realized I’d been lying to myself, lying to those closest to me, just to get through each day.
I bought it and carried the stone in my pocket like a talisman, touching it when I recognized a lie in any form, from the ones I told myself to the ones others told me.
It gave me the power to let go of the fictional story I’d created to protect myself and to see through the gaslighting. But the most challenging part was facing the truth within the truth: It was easy to blame everyone else for my unhappiness, but I was also at fault. I had significant changes to make in myself, and if I wanted to be truly happy (I did), I had to leave (I did that, too). The truth was, I had no one to blame but myself for either choice.
Fast forward to the past year, where every day is an exercise in telling truth from fiction, and that becomes harder and harder the longer we live in this odd pandemic half-life. There has been a lot of reality lately. Facing the truth of the world as it is, as it’s been for the past year, is exhausting.
We ask each other, “How are you?” and we say, “Fine.” But really, so many of us are not fine. We are far, far, far from fine.
The New York Times recently opened a ‘Primal Scream’ hotline where it encouraged mothers to call in and tell their stories of pandemic frustration and grief and scream if they were so moved to do so.
By Heather Reid
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