When I was 18, my boyfriend of over 2 years and I had broken up, and I hooked up with his best friend. This was never the intention when he had asked me to hang out that afternoon, but he put me in a high-pressure situation and disguised it with the a childish game of truth or dare. Though I don't remember how, my ex-boyfriend found out about this little hang out, and naturally, was anything but thrilled. When the 3 of us got together to talk about it, I gushed and cried and spilled everything in an outburst apology filled with guilt. And the best friend? He denied the whole thing. He tried telling me I was crazy, and was making things up to destroy their friendship. If I couldn't have him, no one could, right? Wrong. My ex eventually believed me, explaining how his friend had a tendency to change things in his head, and then actually truly believe these changes were real. I though this was absolute bullshit; he knew what he did, and he knew what happened. This is what I thought anyway, until it happened to me, too.
Years ago, I made up this incredible lie, for no reason at all. At first, it was just to myself; thinking of what could be different if this lie were true. And then to test those differences, I told someone this lie actually happened. The way I felt as I heard the untrue words spew from my mouth was empowering. And so, I would tell another person here and there, but never anyone too close to me, I couldn't do that. The more I talked about it, the more I thought about it, and the more elaborate it became in my head; I eventually even created a visual of what I imagined this lie would look like, feel like. And there, in my own head, I too, believed this lie to be true. The more I believed it, the more I felt compelled to talk about it, because just like any other real situation in life, you talk about things with people you are close to. And this eventually lead to me telling close friends and even some family members. If you gave me a lie detector test and asked me if this were true, I would have passed with flying colors. I had talked about it so much, I could actually SEE what I was talking about, I could feel the feelings I was describing. To me, this WAS real.
It wasn't until I had Lyla that I went back and thought about this lie. I was looking at her, brand new to this world; a clean slate. Free of anything bad in life. And all of a sudden, I woke up from this dream world I had been living in, and felt a great deal of guilt. To this day, there are only 4 people who know about this lie, and not one of them is one who I had originally told it to. They were people who had never been lied to, and who were told the tale of this lie, and why I did it, and how I too believed it. When I talk to them about it, they assure and reassure me that it's nothing I need to go back and apologize for, because it didn't hurt anyone. I wasn't hiding a murder or secret family. The only person who was hurt from this situation was me, for all the guilt I am plagued with from it. I'm not sure I'll ever have the strength to go back to each person and admit that this tall tale was indeed just that.
On a lighter note, I can't say I entirely regret this lie either. Because I am filled with such guilt from lying to people so close to me, I can honestly say that nothing more than a little-white-lie has passed through these lips since then. And for that, I feel wonderful. I feel like I never want to lie again, and I feel like a better person for that. Luckily, my fiance is one of those 4 who does know about this lie, and I am thankful that he was there to listen when I talked to him about it, and didn't think any less of me for it. Infact, I believe it was one of the very first things I opened up to him about. I knew I liked him a lot, and I knew I wanted that clean-slate in this new relationship. I was open and honest with him from the start, when he still had the chance to run, and he's still here. So in some ways I am thankful for torturing myself this way, because I know that the one thing that will never plague my marriage is a lie, and all because of this terrible thing I said 4 years ago.
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