Dearest Daughters,
Posting old content while we're away.
Another thing I wrote while studying abroad in Paris, originally posted this during my senior year of college. Self explanatory.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m a compulsive liar. If a compulsive liar really believes her lies, then maybe all that I believe to be really true just isn’t. Maybe I’m not really from California, in which case I don’t know where I’ve been living all of my life. Maybe I don’t really have a little brother named Kevin who is really really tall and is an underwater welder/EMT, who I’d kill for. I mean he did “spend a lot of time in his room” as a kid. Maybe all of the imaginary friends that I thought I didn’t have as a child, instead preferring “real” friends were actually imaginary after all. Maybe I’m delusional… seriously, though, how does one really know? Okay, I’ll give myself the benefit of the doubt that I was actually raised in California, all of my family members exist and my friends, though few and far between, were not imaginary. Even so, I must consider my college life and the compulsive lies that I may or may not tell my family about my life in Boston or the compulsive lies that I may or may not tell during my college life about life at home. Maybe I have a split personality!
“I’d still go to the store with you if you had a mullet.”
“But, whatif is was a purple mullet? And whatif my eyebrows were tattooed on? And whatif I had bad body odor too? And whatif I could only sing the Married with Children theme song instead of talking? And whatif I only ate raw squid? Whatif then?”
“Whatif, Deanne, whatif?”
So, if my sister plays the Whatif Game, I play the Maybe Game. And I realize the rhetorical nature of my game. Responses are highly unwelcome, but undivided attention while I contemplate aloud is expected. If a challenger insists that I am not a compulsive liar or that Tupac really did die, he or she unwittingly has entered him or herself into the next round of the “maybes.” Depending on the degree of the offense, this can elicit a light or heavy sentence. For example if “maybe Tupac isn’t dead” is challenged, the perpetrator will only receive a response of “maybe your hair will fall out” in the next round because I don’t really care about Tupac. If “maybe I’m a compulsive liar” is put to the test, then “maybe you’ll die a slow, painful death” is usually the first thing out of my mouth, because I really might, maybe be a compulsive liar.
I have only really known two compulsive liars in my life. The first was one of my best friends in elementary school, who lied about anything having to do with boys or her mother. She never really really really had me convinced, but I wanted to believe her, for her sake. I wanted to give her the attention she wasn’t getting elsewhere when she insisted that she was pregnant in fourth grade. Or when she boasted that her mother who left her to be raised by her grandparents was going to taker her to Hawaii. I don’t blame her for wanting to believe the things she did.
This childhood friend was one thing, but I recently met a real compulsive liar. This girl is one of the most intellectual and well-read people I know, which makes her a particularly tricky compulsive liar. She has me convinced of the validity of the various random, outrageous, funny, strange, frightening, amazing and story-worthy aspects of her life. Okay, so maybe I’m just jealous that she has so many random, outrageous, funny, strange, frightening, amazing and story-worthy aspects of her life, while I’m stuck with stories about a depressing childhood friend and current friends who I think are compulsive liars…
Oh well, maybe I don’t have as many entertaining stories, but the Maybe Game can certainly provide hours of entertainment.
(Above written May 2005 in Paris, France.)
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