Unassigned
I did something shameful last week.
Well, I almost did something shameful last week.
Okay, let’s be honest, I probably did actually do something shameful last week, but it’s not the thing I almost did that I’m about to tell you about.
Allow me to explain.
You see, I tend to be an unnecessarily secretive person.
It’s not because I like to keep things from people, or because I enjoy the thrill of a scandal. More than anything, it’s because I have developed a nasty habit of only exposing things that I feel are safe and will be well received.
Which, unfortunately, is about as realistic as a romance on The Bachelor.
For some reason – maybe it’s the fact that I’m a middle child, or perhaps it’s due to my sensitive soul (let’s go with that – it sounds better) – I have spent most of my life as a people pleaser.
Along with a million other side effects, this means that I tend to keep things in the dark. This also means that I have a lot of secrets.
For example, last week I drank all of Clare’s coffee. Now I didn’t exactly drink it all in one week, but over the course of a few weeks while Clare was out of town, I drank most of her giant bag of coffee.
And like most secret, deviant behavior, it started out as just a cup here, a pot there. But soon enough, I was using her grounds to make my morning coffee (and on the days when I worked from home, my afternoon brew as well).
The kicker is this: it wasn’t just a jug of Folger’s. It was coffee she had especially bought from some specialty store nowhere near where we lived. So when I realized what I had done, I went into immediate (and well-rehearsed) panic mode. I quickly decided that I would buy some other brand of coffee and dump it into her bag and never speak of it again (reminiscent of the notorious under-age trick of refilling your parent’s liquor bottles with water to replace the booze you stole from them).
But as the week went on, I never made it to the store. And as I imagined the varying levels of what her reaction would be if she found me out, my anxiety increased. At least once a day I would remember, with growing unease, that I had yet to replace the stolen goods. I became my own prisoner; trapped with my secret.
A few days before she came home, I was talking to her on the phone and despite my extensive background in the art of avoidance, confessed to the crime.
“I drank all of your coffee. And I’m really sorry and it was an accident and I’ll buy you more.” I blurted out, wincing as I awaited her response.
What came next was not what I was expecting, and the exact opposite of what I had feared.
She laughed.
And then – with a graciousness I should have anticipated – said, “That’s okay, Lynds.”
You may be thinking that this is a ridiculous story. You may be wondering why in the world I would freak out about such a small thing. But regardless of the triviality of this particular example, the principle remains the same: we have a tendency to shy away from any truth that we feel will be ill received.
Clearly, this story is a surface level example with a fairly shallow truth involved. But it is the perfect illustration of what can happen when we hide the truth.
Even something as simple as a lie about coffee has the potential to create an ugly secret.
And be ye not deceived; everything that you conceal in the dark will fester. Everything hidden will haunt you.
The expression “coming clean” really describes this perfectly. It takes trust in others and trust in yourself to come clean about your secrets or lies, but once you do, you really do feel clean.
Because let’s face it. Most of what we don’t want to tell others has to do with things we regret (as in a lie, or a betrayal) or shame (as in things regarding who we are or where we come from that we are deeply ashamed of).
But the truth is, we have no control over either of these situations. In the former, the damage is already done and in the latter, the truth is the truth regardless of our acceptance of it.
So we have a choice: come clean, or hide in the dark and stay dirty (and when I say dirty, I don’t mean dirty with two R’s like Christina Aguilera’s 2002 sexy, fun dirrty).
If I have learned anything, it’s this: coming clean now makes it easier to come clean later. The more comfortable I get with being up front about what is going on in my life, the more I am able to build up a tolerance for the ways people respond to me. Unfortunately, the reality is that every instance will not always involve immediate acceptance, forgiveness, or grace. There will often be hours, days, or weeks of time when I will deal with painful reactions and repercussions. But I will be free of the ghost of shame and dishonesty and secrets.
And that is better than living in a lie. Better than living in the dark. And certainly worth coming clean for.
