As of late, I’ve been in a constant struggle with the word “truth”. What it means to me. What it means to those around me. My family. My friends. Our collective truth. I wonder about the price of it, the cost of it, the casualty of it. One minute I think it is the only thing that has gotten me this far in my life, my ability to lie so close to it, to my own truth. Then some days I think it will unravel me. It will haunt me until I die. It will destroy my compassion, my empathy, my good-natured ways. I wonder if I have good-natured ways. I doubt I always have good-natured ways.

Today I am considering sharing a story that has followed me around for years now, but I’m hesitant because I think the other person in the story will not have the same recollections that I do. I think the other person will remember it a different way. Will feel a truth that is foreign to me. Will wish the outcome had been different, so instead of writing about the moment in time when our realities diverge or collide, I instead sit alone in my office and continue to think about whose truth I’d actually be telling. And what is the intent of the truth besides. Intent. What is the intent?

I used to think, naively, that truth WAS the intent. But I don’t anymore. More often than not these days I’m leaning toward truth being merely a byproduct of compassion, empathy, those good-natured ways. If we have been raised well enough, loved enough as children, then certainly we’ve been taught that truth hurts, and sometimes that pain is not worth whatever the intent is on the other side. I’m rambling now. I’m a rambler, that’s one of my truths.

I guess I’m writing today to say that I’m not writing today. I can’t. Not just yet. Because some truths don’t feel like mine, even when they are.

Take care of your truths. I think it is the best way.

M.