So many lies; it is true what they you know, once you tell one you have to tell another and then another until eventually you find yourself not knowing what the truth is anymore.  Oh, it gets easier with time.  You learn not to discriminate with whom you lie; everyone becomes fair game.  You tell yourself that it is for their own good, their own protection, but in reality you are only protecting yourself.  It becomes a habit.  The truth, after all can be so boring.

You find yourself simply embellishing the facts at first but, with time, you find yourself disregarding the truth completely.  In fact, I’ve found that the more you tell a lie to others the more and more you begin to believe the lie as your own reality to the point where you are no longer living in reality but in your own make believe world where you make up the rules to suit your own desires.  My world is such that it’s like an onion.  I wonder how many layers you would have to peel away to find the true me.  I don’t even know who that is anymore and if I am to be honest about one thing, I’m not so very sure I want to know.  I like the reality that I’ve created for myself.  It’s comfortable.  I feel safe here.  My will is my own and, well, your will is my own too.

I suppose if one asked how my present state of mind came to be I guess I would have to go all the way back to my childhood.  Like most small children I played make believe. I’d become a character in a different world of my creating. Only mine wasn’t just for fun, it was for escape.  Escape from the realities of a dysfunctional family; a controlling, abusive father, a timid, weak mother, and siblings with their own shares of inherited complexities that have followed them well into adulthood. 

But it’s okay because I can look at my family now and see nothing but perfection.  Why you should have heard the eulogy that I gave at my father’s funeral.  You would have thought the man was a saint.  There wasn’t a dry eye in Saint Matthew’s that day.  Even I managed to shed real tears.  It was beautiful, quite the send off, one of my finest moments. 

But getting back, I guess I simply found that I liked escaping.  Soon I found myself doing it more and more until I eventually couldn’t discern between reality and fantasy and didn’t really want to or care to.  And that brings us back to where I am now.  I know what you must think; that it’s a lonely existence and you’re right, it is very lonely.  The few close friends that I have are only as close as I want them to be.  So in reality, how close can that be?  If someone gets too close, you know, to the real me, I have to let them go.  It’s a matter of self preservation, of protecting my reality.  So yes, it gets very lonely, painfully lonely, but I tell myself that I am happy and that is what I am.