The Problem With Honesty

Two days ago I was particularly honest with someone and now I wish I could take all that honesty back. People say they want to hear the truth, but they don't really want to hear it. As for me, I want to tell the truth, but I don't want to deal with the consequences of telling the truth. Sometimes I wish I could lie to people more, which is odd since I tell little lies to people all the time. How many times a day do you and I have this exchange:

"How are you doing?"
"I'm great."

Not to be all Dr. Phil about it, but this week I want to tell folks that I'm not so great. I worked 82 hours last week and I'm racking it up this week as well. I almost fell asleep while driving up Figueroa Street on Monday afternoon. The only thing that saved me was that the hookers were out in full force just south of Gage Avenue and boy oh boy, some of those outfits are serious jaw-droppers.

We all know what happens if I don't say that I'm great. I sound like a whiny beeyotch and I have to then hear about how whoever I'm talking to worked 90 hours so my 82 is really nothing.

So maybe I don't actually wish that I could lie more. Maybe I don't even really want to be more honest. Maybe I just like to behave badly sometimes and I pass it off as honesty. I still have to live down this conversation from 3 years ago:

"Can I take Olinga (my elder son) to the beach with me?" this person, an acquaintance of my husband's asked.
"No," I said.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Because I don't like you," I replied.
"But I don't understand why," she said.
"Because you're a bitch and a ho and I don't want my son around you," I said.

Now, that's behaving pretty badly, isn't it, even if I was definitely telling the truth. Everything was true, in my own subjective version of the truth. Perhaps to others, she wasn't a ho, just very free with her sexuality and very skilled at making men pay her rent. I try to make myself myself feel better by saying that I was so annoyed because I felt like it was hypocritical of her to act like I'd ever liked her...and I was six months pregnant and tired. Not that that excuses anything but I can sometimes just be a little raw when I'm tired.

Which brings me back to my honesty of a couple of days ago. I'm still trying to figure out what to do about it and maybe the best option is to do nothing at all.