Honesty

Beloved and I have an honest relationship.  In fact, I sometimes wish he we weren’t  
quite so honest with me each other.  I totally understand that being honest is good, and I always tell my children that honesty is the best policy, but Beloved really takes it to the limit.  I am somewhat used to it, but it can be startling to others, as guests who come for dinner at our home can attest.  When Beloved decides he is finished with our dinner party he walks upstairs to our bedroom, dons pajamas and nightcap (if he had one), returns downstairs to walk the dog yawning loudly when he passes the dining room.  Our friends are a hardy bunch, and they don’t do anything rash like leave, but they do feel uncomfortable for a moment or two.

I appreciate Beloved’s no nonsense, honesty, especially after the exhausting experience of living with my own sometimes questionable character.  The problem is it seems to be rubbing off on everyone I come in contact with.  Rosee never fails to apologize for waking me (with a very critical look on her face) when she arrives every day at 2:00 in the afternoon.  It puts me in a difficult position, as she very well knows.  Protesting that, "of course I wasn't sleeping" makes me appear guilty.  She just can’t seem to get over those one or two times she arrived whilst I was taking a quite-common-in-Europe afternoon respite.  

The Ladies are another problem.  They are super sweet and everything, but I’m afraid they are living up to the stereotype of religious people being somewhat judgmental.  If we’ve had a party the night before I have to get up at the break of dawn and hide all the evidence.  For a long time I chalked it up to a language/customs barrier, but I’m starting to think it’s just rude when they look at the number of bottles, speak to each other in a disapproving Portuguese manner, then ask how I am feeling this morning.  I trill a happy little non-hungover laugh and say, “Why I feel fabulous…ohhhh!  d’ you mean because of those (looking with surprise at the bottles as if I forgot they were there since they have so little to do with me)?  Goodness, we had scads of people over last night, a huge party in fact.”  At which they begin to pointedly stack the dirty dinner plates (a far lesser number than I intimated).
 
 I won’t even go into Youngest’s honesty issues.  I’ve tried to explain to him time and time again that honesty is a very good thing, but sometimes it’s better to be honest with Mommy privately than to be honest, for example, to the transgender person at Cal Mart.

The frustrating thing is with all this honesty being directed at me I still let everyone else off the hook.  When one of my acquaintances show up with a completely new face and say it is because they started curling their eyelashes do I show by even a glimmer that I am anything but completely accepting of their explanation?

When I compliment a friend on the necklace they are wearing and they say, “thank you, it was handed down from darling Grandmama” do I remind them that I was actually with them when they bought it?

When someone talks about the year they graduated that is years later than I know it was from a university that I’m pretty sure they didn’t attend I never point out that that would make them my babysitter’s age.

And when some silly person talks up the super important PR career they had in New York when I know very well was little more than an assistant’s role, do I remind them…well actually that’s me and of course I don’t, but you get my point!

 

Comments

[Heather Elder]

Hysterical. Kind of like when I thought I was being cute with youngest and asked him if he knew where I had been the night before. He quickly replied "My house." When I asked him how he knew, he said, "I saw the wine glasses." Hmmmmm. Not sure how wine glasses = me, but he wasn't wrong!

[Beloved Blogger]

In the words of Billy Joel.

"Honesty is such a lonely word"

[Karena]

Now Honestly,

you must...Come and enter my amazing Giveaway from Splenderosa! You will love it!

xoxo
Karena
Art by Karena

[liz morten]

Here is my lecture on honesty to my girls: "In the dressing room, if the dress looks horrible, tell the TRUTH. When the travesty is on the body, fully paid for, it is gorgeous." Honesty and truth are different things. In the end, after all, the mathematics of truth default to our roles as supporters and validators, therefore the honesty factor enters the negative side of the equation, right?
Best,
Liz

[Alan]

I'll drink to that!
Honestly, I think Liz has a great answer and when I'm sober I'm sure I will understand it.

[Alison Duffy]

Can I please have those black glasses???? Love them!!! Thanks for stopping by not too long ago. I have admired your blog for a long time now. xx Ali