Your Mid-Week Update for 02/24/21

I love lying. My entire life is a lie. When my co-workers ask me what I did over the weekend, I don’t tell them I stuffed boiling rags in a man’s mouth and spent three hours peeling his skin off with a potato peeler until he bled to death from every orifice. I tell them that I spent some time cooking with my family and watched Christmas movies which had been replaying on the Hallmark channel.

It’s such an odd genre, if you think about it. A near year-round obsession with falling in love over the holidays, only to reveal that the attraction that brought them together was fabricated by magic. I’m not against romantic movies – or maybe I am – but I wonder why it’s February, and some people are still trying to relive the glory days of December 2020.

Because that was such a riot for everyone involved.

The point I’m trying to make is: I don’t mind stretching the truth or straight up fibbing for the fun of it. I have spent the majority of my life lying to everyone around me (my parent, my children, my coworkers, my friends). Sometimes, though, I hate it. More importantly, I hate lying to the two people in my life whom I have always been able to tell the truth.

James has been my constant companion for nearly 13 years – holy shit – and I don’t like lying to him. So I don’t. We don’t keep secrets from each other. Except for Casey who is a secret all to herself. Keeping things from her – things that affect her – feels wrong. This girl has put her absolute trust in us. Not to mention, there’s a fear in what she might do if she ever found out that we were lying to her.

But is it really lying?

She’s never asked about her parents; she barely talks about her life in the foster system. And I won’t push her to do so. But I think she would want to know. I would want to know.

Can you imagine if my mother had disappeared when I was a kid and I only learned she was alive a decade later? I think I would be a very different person. Or maybe I wouldn’t be. Maybe we were always going to be these people and we were just lucky enough to find each other so we don’t feel alone.

I tend to flip flop on the whole ‘Nurture vs Nature’ argument. To look at my sister and me, you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that we come from the same parent (that we grew up in the same household. At the same time, I can’t imagine being anyone else.

Maybe telling Casey about her mother won’t change anything. I’d like to think she’s happy here, she certainly seems happy for the way she eagerly describes the woman she gutted while going for groceries the other day. Would knowing the truth change her?

And, of course, there is the selfish little paranoia that she’ll lash out when she finds that out that she’s been lied to. I know this girl: quiet and subtle are not her best traits as a killer. Though her aggression has never been directed at me, I can’t presume I’d be safe if that were the direction she took.

I think I know Casey. I think I know James. But I am living proof that you can never truly know anyone.

Is it bad that I’d rather watch another Hallmark movie than talk to my daughter?

I know it’s bad that I’d rather try to skin someone’s elbow with a carrot peeler. The flesh is so tough. And for what? You bleed the same as anywhere else.

As always, dear readers,

Stay Safe