One day in 2nd grade, my teacher took my classmates and I outside the classroom. We were guided as a group out onto the blacktop playground, fresh puddles surrounding us after a recent rainstorm. Our teacher bent down and poked her finger into the stillness of one puddle, and we all watched with giggles as the dark water rippled outward. "Do you see that?" she asked, a kind but stern smile between her rosy cheeks. The circles in the water got bigger and bigger, cascading in ripples through the surface of the puddle. "That's what happens when you tell a lie. It starts out small, and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger."
photo credit: Joshua Jackson
As I got older, I forgot a lot of things, but I didn't forget this story. I also had to learn that the biggest lies I ever told were usually to myself: saying I liked things that I didn't, or I didn't like things that I loved. Pretending to be happy in relationships, jobs, decisions, places. When we pretend for long enough, we can forget what the truth feels like. When we're used to the ripples, we forget what the stillness was like...
But that doesn't mean it's gone.
The truth is in there, sweetpeas. Get quiet, and find it.
xo,
Melissa