Growing up, I used to visit my Aunt Joy with relative frequency. It gave my mom a break (I understand now), but it was also fun for me. Although my aunt did not give birth to my cousin, Joie, until I was eight (and therefore we did not actually ever play together), I had friends my age to play with down the hall from my aunt's apartment: Judy and Jasmine.

Judy and Jasmine were sisters. They lived with their Grandma Jenny. Their mom, big Judy, was sometimes there, but she was what one might call a free spirit and had her own apartment a block away.

Anyway, one Sunday, after spending the night at Jasmine and Judy's apartment, they and I wrote our own church service and performed it for their mom (an actress) and grandma. I was the pastor. Our performance was lauded and applauded.

Later that day, my mom picked me up and asked if I went to mass (Sunday mass was a requirement both by my mom and my school.) I hesitated, but said yes. I thought, well, it wasn't in a church but we did say mass.

Mistake.

As we were preparing to leave, big Judy came down to give my mom a copy of the mass we had written and to exclaim over how creative we were and what a great job we did.

I died a little.

My mother's eyes were livid. Judy realized the air was crackling and stopped talking mid exclamation.

"You said you went to mass."

"Well, it was a mass..."

"Get in the room. Now. Joy, give me a belt."

My aunt and Judy's eyes were so sad on my behalf.

My aunt tried to calm my mother down.

I might mention that lying is number one on my mother (and now my) list of do not even think about doing to me.

That was the second and last time my mother ever beat me. (The first time I was four and throwing my toys out the window, trying to run away.)

A painful lesson, but given the rarity, it was taken to heart and has influenced my behavior ever since.

When I was in second grade, I told the whole class I was turning 10. We all know eight is the more appropriate age at that grade level.

My mother was bringing a cake that afternoon, I guess I needed to live up to the attention I was expecting to get.

I don’t remember a single classmate not believing me. I remember telling one, maybe two people and the rumor must have spread like wildfire. What was so great about 10?

I just remember my mother walking in the classroom later that afternoon with a huge cake and possibly some ice cream. She must have taken off from work early, something she rarely did.

My mother and Mr. Brown, the best teacher till this day, conversed for a few minutes as usual. Made small talk. Mr. Brown was very handsome. I’m assuming he was single and not gay. But don’t think they were flirting. Sally’s mom would flirt with Mr. Brown, she even asked him for gas money once.

The question must have been something along the lines of, “How many birthday candles do we need on this cake?” Or maybe Mr. Brown asked aloud, “How old did you turn today?”

If memory serves me right, my mother’s response must have been something along the lines of, “Eight!”

I just remember my heart sunk. Before I knew it, the class was whispering. A few people started shouting, “10!” The newish, quiet boy shouted the loudest in his Spanish accent, “Teeennn!”

“Oh, great. They actually believed me.” I thought.

I remember Mr. Brown looked at my mother. My mother just laughed and said, “She’s going to be eight.”

Mr. Brown made a very loud, clarifying announcement to the class that I had turned eight.

I embarrassingly sank into my chair. I’m sure the entire class turned and looked at me. My mother and Mr. Brown just laughed it off. No big deal. But my spirits were crushed.

One of the two adults began cutting into the cake at the front of the room. I had to redeem myself.

I turned to my friend, we’ll call her Linda, sitting at the same table as me and whispered, “But I'm really going to be 10!”

// explicit //

i faked my first, and second, and all my orgasms with my high school boyfriend.

i remember making the conscious decision, on a winter night in my mother's empty apartment, that i was going to fake it. i had never orgasmed in my life, but i'd read enough e fantasy books and watched half-performative twitter clips that i thought i could.

the irony is a few weeks later, as i discussed it with my best friend in a deserted mall cafeteria, is i found out i may have actually finished. i didn't know what an orgasm felt like. she, in all her wisdom, explained it didn't feel like all it was chalked up to be. i knew that, obviously, but i didn't know what to expect.

anyways. the day after i faked an orgasm with my boyfriend, i faked another. he was proud. thought he took care of me.

i wanted to cry. i had never lied to him before. i fell asleep on his chest, and he held me, even though i hadn't taken care of him.

when i went home, i didn't know how to feel. the internet said i should tell him. that i should self-experiment to see what i like. but i had just gotten on anti-depressants and had barely any sex drive. question forums and blog posts were no help. if you tell him, it'll break your trust. if you don't, you're living with a lie. it's ok, some people said, just don't do it again. i fell down holes of the glamorization of porn and how it gave people unrealistic expectations. how there's an orgasm gap. how men are typically entitled in the bedroom. how it's so fucking common for women to fake their orgasms, because there's such a heavy societal strain on "finishing".

i cried on my mother's bed that day. she wanted to know what was wrong. i didn't tell her.

i told my boyfriend i might've had pcd. or something like that. because it didn't feel like a regular depression episode. the headspace was different. i didn't know if it was the guilt of faking it. i wasn't raised catholic. i didn't care marriage was seen as a precursor to sex. i didn't care we didn't have sex and only did stuff a hop skip jump away from it.

was i crying to mourn my childhood? maybe. i don't think so. growing up isn't tied to innocence. when you're a girl, the world sexualizes you before you even know what that means.

i internally decided i wouldn't tell my boyfriend i faked. i would just never do it again.

until valentine's day rolled around. it was supposed to be special, right? until he admitted he felt insecure in bed when i didn't come. until my anti-depressant dose made it near impossible to feel anything, including sexual attraction. until he wouldn't stop unless i "reached the goal", within safeword proximity.

so yeah. i never lied to him about anything else. not about his ugly graphic tees, or his lacklustre texting style, or how he was obsessed with his girl best friend. but in bed, every time.

I told these 8-10 year kids at a summer camp I was a camp counselor at with the straightest face that I have web toes. And the whole summer I had these campers believe that Miss Anna had on aqua socks every time they went to swim in the lake because she was embarrassed of her webbed feet.

It probably gave me too much joy as a 20 year old grown up kid myself...

Once upon a time I lived next to the neighbor from hell. They were on the frequent flier list with the police, zoning officials, child services, animal control, and even the fire department. They liked to fully utilize ALL the public services at their disposal.

One day they had left one of their dogs tied up in the yard. It was freezing rain and the poor beast stood shivering with no shelter. So I phoned Animal Control to ask if this was legal or not. Before I hung up the phone, they said they would be right over.

And so the Animal Control officer parked her truck in front of their house. She issued multiple citations including an order to appear in court. Then she pulled her truck forward up the street, parked in front of my house, then this pleasant young woman in a yellow raincoat informed me about what she had done.

Five minutes later came a brutal pounding on the door. It was the neighbor, a young man who had quite a storied history that included gang membership, prison and other less civic-minded pursuits that involved controlled substances and firearms.

I peered out the window. He stood with his fists clenched on the porch, he paced nervously and rang the bell again. I opened the door and smiled.

"Hey Chris, how's it going?" I said.

He blurted out, "Somebody called the pound on my DOG!" and stepped towards me.

"Funny thing," I said, "Some lady from animal control just stopped by. She asked me if I owned a dog! I told her no, I don't even OWN a dog!" His fists unclenched.

He relaxed a bit and said, "Well. If I ever find out who called the pound on my dog...."

"I'll keep my ears open and let you know," I said as I closed the door.

only criminals tell lies, he said, and I think now that is probably not true.

I said "whatever" like a girl from South Boston, the 'a' pronounced like a puff of cigarette smoke in his face.

we tell lies to protect, to cover up, to run without moving our feet.

I wonder if he remembers who I was then,

if words carry the weight of the past.

We are responsible for our own state of mind. We have the ability to alter our perspective in order to channel positive energy. But sometimes the mind shouldn’t be manipulated. Sometimes we need to feel and express our emotional aches and pains. Through this we find a deeper understanding of our individual worlds. In understanding them, we will ultimately be set free from them.

So I’ll let my mind accept the pain of loss. No one can prepare you for the ridiculous emotions that come with love. Ranging from euphoric to petrified but always a little concerned.

A cycle of violence stemming from alcohol abuse and his use of heroin resulted in the end of my relationship with the love of my life. Once we became conscious of this cycle, we both knew we couldn’t be together. As much as I want to support him, I realize that the best way to do that is to not be with him. That truth was revealed through unimaginable pain.

I still think about him everyday, however, in order to continue living and breathing, sometimes I need to change what is in my mind. Sometimes I create an illusion that all of those horrible nights leading to the end never happened and that I’ll be seeing him soon. In deep meditation I have been able to alter my mind so intensely that I could feel his physical presence.

I imagine this is an arguably unhealthy coping technique but it is the delusions that allow me to breathe.

If I didn’t have a job, responsibilities, friends and family that rely on me for support, then i could release my mind to its natural rhythm, and though it might be painful, ultimately I would be free.

I believe the mind should be allowed its natural experience. But our world does not operate in this way, and so, to be a part of it, neither can we. We find ways to numb the undesirable rather than facing it. Next time you’re feeling blue, see what surfaces if you just let your mind unwind. Maybe you’ll find that it is indeed better to create reality from lies, or maybe you’ll find that the bad isn’t so bad after all. It is not smiles and laughter always, but it’s real. The actual real.

The first lie I said was on my sweet 15 when I and a friend of mine tried to make birthday for Harry Styles at the time he was born. In order to do that I had to lie to my parents by saying it was a lesson from school we had to do outside school. Oh but I hated so bad the next day so I said everything and I never made it there. It was the day my dad was cruel to me and he was right I guess.

I remember it like it was yesterday. We lived in the Boondocks out in Berlin in this little cabin so basically the only fun we had was spending time with each other. That day it was my older brother, Lucas, and me. My mom had a friend over named Jen. Jen had been her friend for basically our whole lives. Now we had water behind our house, it was kind of a Brackish type of water, but we had a little John boat we would take out sometimes. That day it was sunny and beautiful. My mama and Jen decided to go out on the boat and leave me and Lucas at the house. Now before I get into it, I want to clarify that I was about eleven years old, and Lucas was 12. We weren't too happy that she left us instead of letting us ride so we made a unilateral decision to take her new car for a drive. She had just got this car a few months before. It was a fire red Mustang with a matte black strip down the side. I remember looking through the house for her keys and when we found them, we were both thinking "this will show her". We ran out of the house giggling like two wild hyenas and Lucas told me to get in the driver's seat. I hopped up in there and took in my surrounding for a moment. I had never even been in the driver's seat of a car, so I didn't really know what to do. We fastened our seatbelts and giggled amongst ourselves. Lucas told me to reverse the car and start backing out of the driveway. Even though I didn't know exactly what he meant, I nervously began to do just that. I shifted the car into reverse and slowly let off the break and the car began to roll slowly backwards as we laughed. Even though we were going about 4 miles an hour it felt like we were flying. We were basking in that adrenaline when all of a sudden we heard the loud scraping of metal. I hit the brakes instantly and we both looked at each other in horror. In a panic, I quickly put the car back in drive and parked the car back where my mom had it parked before we decided to go GTA on her vehicle. We sat there silently for a moment and then we both got out. As soon as Lucas got out, I could see pure devastation on his face. I braced myself and walked over to the passenger side of the car. I couldn't believe my eyes and a sinking feeling of regret consumed my body as I realized we hit something on the passenger side. By something I mean a wooden pole. Now like I said before, it FELT like we were flying but in reality, we had only traveled about 200 ft before the light pole ripped that matte black stripe off. We both stared at it for a few moments, saying nothing at all. Then my brain began to race with all the possible outcomes we would face when she got home and saw this. I knew that my mom did not often even look at the passenger side because she was always the driver so I figured she wouldn't see it for a while. That day we made a pact to never speak of this again. And on the day that Mom potentially discovered it we would lie and deny. The guilt ate us up for weeks, but we remembered out pact and never mentioned it. One day my mother and I were walking out of Sally's Beauty Supply when she caught a glimpse of the passenger side. "OH MY GOD!" she said. Instantly my heart sank down to my socks, but I knew I had to put on the best poker face. "OH MY GOD!" I said, to seem just as surprised as her. "SOMEBODY HIT MY CAR AND DIDN'T EVEN STOP WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?!" she exclaimed. My heart began to float out of my socks back up into my chest because it seemed that our sibling joyride would go down in history unnoticed. That lasted a few moments before I heard her dialing up her phone to call the police to report a hit and run. Now my heart sank so low it slipped right over my socks, off my shoes and onto the black pavement of the parking lot. I was panicking but still keeping my poker face. The cops arrived and she told them we had been in Sally's for only 20 minutes and whoever was parked next to her must have scraped the black stripe off as that backed out. I sat in the car while all of this went down feeling terrible for what we had done and even more terrible that my one lie had taken us this far. Although I was feeling the guilt I knew if I told her the truth my punishment would be so much worse. I never knew my one lie would unravel into all of this mess. Mom finished up with her report and returned to the car. She was upset and I was upset too. When we returned home, I softly told my brother what had happened. We debated on coming clean but as I said before, we knew the punishment would only be worse now that we waited. So, we again agreed that our pact would remain a secret we would take to the grave and 12 years later it still remains just that. I was always told that when you tell one little white lie it turns into a web of lies. I never understood it until that day. Even the smallest little white lie creates a web because we have to continue lying to maintain the original lie we told. Since then, I literally cannot tell a lie. Not even a small one. The guilt still eats me up and my pants are still singed from being on fire.

Written by CateTheGr8