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the honest truth

Sunday morning. 9:00am

I roll over in bed and open my eyes, which are slightly crusty from the remnants of last night’s make-up. A. is not in the bed. I pad to the window that looks out over the carport. His car is back, meaning that he walked from our house to Toluca Lake – not an insanely far distance, but taking the hills into account, still a stretch. I do the math: he must have gotten up by at least 7:00am.

I find him in the study. I would have driven you, I tell him.

I know.

Silence. Not an uncomfortable silence, but not totally comfortable either. We’re suspended in stop-motion animation, ready to be moved into next position.

I wrote a slack article, he tells me. I emailed it to you.

Thank you.

Don’t thank me, he says. You’re not going to like it. Use it or don’t use it, but it's done.

I power up the computer, check my email. Sure enough, it was there with a note.

Don't forget that I love you, for whatever that's worth.

No one likes to hear the honest truth when it isn’t flattering, unless you’re of a thank-you-sir-may-I-have-another type. And the fact that now we even qualify it with “honest” – the honest truth rather than the just plain truth should tell you something about where we’re at as a species.

One thing I’ve never wanted to do with this space is lie. I may highlight only the best (or, conversely, worst) parts of my week, find some small thread to pull and thus weave into a story, but I’ve always tried to be honest about what I thought and felt, even if it wasn’t oh-so-pretty.

I read the article, then go find A.

It’s good, I tell him.

It’s brutal, he says.

Brutally honest, I reply.

But brutal.

Which is where I disagree.

Brutal honesty isn’t brutal. Yes, sometimes things can be phrased in a nicer way – our good friend tact certainly has its place – but if someone knows you and loves you, in a healthy relationship when they say okay, you’ve fucked up and it’s time to pull yourself out of the hole, then it’s time to sit up and listen.

Of course, it’s natural to get defensive. Although I know in my heart that somewhere along the way I lost the brilliant, witty, sassy chick I used to be, I don’t like the fact that other people notice. But when I asked A. will you write my slack article tomorrow? I opened the door to this very sort of microscopic inquiry.

Don’t ask questions you don’t want or know the answers to is one of the things my dad always told me, a tenet of trial law. It’s a good way to run your life as well. Sure, sometimes ignorance is bliss and we might prefer some time with our head in the sand, but if you ask, then you should sit and listen to the answer.

There are few people in my life who I trust to call me on my bullshit. L., for all of the craziness in our relationship, really taught me how to sit and listen to my partner – and tell them – when something was awry. We had the implicit understanding that the answer to do these pants make my ass look fat? was no, your fat ass makes your ass look fat. Meaning that no punches would be pulled. The point wasn’t to be as mean as possible, but not to throw a wig and heels on the ugly truth to make it any more presentable.

A saying evolved over this period of time. It is what it is, I used to say, meaning that I tried to see things for how they really were, and not to force change on them. The only person I could change in a relationship, in a friendship, was me. And if I wasn’t happy, I had to do something about it. Not wait on the other person to do so.

A.’s judgment is fine-tuned. Some days it appears he knows me better than myself. He’s seen me warts and all, as I’ve shown him sides of myself that I don’t dare explore in a public realm. He has earned not only my love, but my respect. A. was in an unhappy marriage for eight years, so it’s vital that one of us speak up when things get rough.

People are going to send me hate mail for what I wrote, he told me later that day.

No, I told him, people are going to have the same reaction I did. They’re going to be happy that I found someone who tells me the truth.

Truth can evoke change. It does for me. When, at the end of my relationship with C., he told me I always thought you were this amazing girl, but I knew you didn’t think that. I thought that maybe I could show you was his way of saying I dated you out of pity, I did everything in my power to not be that girl anymore. It took a lot of long, lonely nights, a lot of tears shed, a lot of frustrated journal writing (if you think that those slack articles are angsty, only imagine the stuff I wrote that no one sees!) and I changed it. Not to get him back, not to get anyone back, but to save myself the embarrassment of being that girl.


When I met A., I had been slackmistress 2.0 for over a year. I was just settling into my new persona. I was also on top of the world – working a great job, having a great dog, in great shape and life couldn’t be better.

Over the next two years, all of those things disappeared.

I realized that isn’t the stuff that makes me slackmistress 2.0. It’s who I am. It’s how I react to situations. It’s how I change. When I read A.’s words on Sunday morning, sitting at my desk in my oversized SpeedRacer shirt and glasses, I felt that despair in the pit of my stomach. Not because his words hurt, but because they were right. Somehow I had let myself slip away, letting the stuff get in the way of who I am. Who I was. Who I wanted to be.

There’s one difference, though. Before I changed for me, because I was the number one priority in my universe. But A. is just as much a part of me as I am. I can’t explain it any other way.

I wanted to be done. I’m thirty-two years old. I wanted to be at the point in my life where this is where I am and nothing will change it. But changing is good. Changing is essential. The constant change of seasons, of time, the cyclical nature of shedding skin and rising anew is the only way to continue to progress.

Bursting into flames means that the phoenix isn’t far away.