The Girl, the Wreck, and the Reckoning

There was this girl. I can say we were both girls with our youthful faces and my unblemished naivete, even though we had just slipped into chronological adulthood. She was the cutest, sweetest, doll-like person I had ever met—she had dark curls, porcelain skin, and a child-like sing-song laugh. And she lied. It didn’t take long before I realized how much she lied. There is nothing wrong with eschewing a non-virtuous trait like lying. At the time, I could not reckon with the dichotomy of outward appearance and altruistic behaviors and the manipulative, self-serving, incessant lying. So I hated her. I discounted her. I didn’t want to be around her even as she pulled us all in, and we revolved around her world. My gut reaction had lots to do with me, but at the same time, there was something that wasn’t right with how she interacted with the people around her. Leap ahead a decade and a half when I was knee-deep into parenthood and a plethora of self-help books. I came across the concept of what we hate/envy/dislike in another person is what we disown/hide/reject in ourselves. So I looked in the mirror and tried it on. ‘I am a liar.’ I couldn’t get it to fit—at all.

The St. Croix River at William O’Brien State Park was like a mirror—except where there was ice. Reflections of the trees and sky were obscured wherever the ice formed or floated.

The cloudy sky reflected steel gray on the River mirror. The dark-trunked trees and the gray bluffs could be seen in their twin forms on the water.

What we see in our reflections and in life depends on how we frame them. Do we look through a narrow lens that blocks out parts we don’t want to see and call it good?

The ice on the River became the focal point even though it clung to the shore and was a small part of the large whole of the River water. It was a distraction really.

It was captivating really.

It was interesting really.

It was intriguing really.

It distracted me from the calm, quietness of the River mirror and its reflections.

There is destruction with ice and distractions.

It immobilizes the old, spent parts of ourselves.

It mesmerizes us with confusion. How could we possibly see clearly through a maze of such entanglements?

It piles up, digs in, and creates a false narrative to the big-picture reality.

The ice-distractions even get reflected in the calm waters, entwining their way into real life, obfuscating our true north.

It takes will and determination to look away from the train wreck, to center ourselves in calm and peace, and to reflect on ourselves and our values.

But we really need it all. We need to be able to see the past, the roots of our being, the things that worked and the things that hurt. We need to be able to identify the captivating, mesmerizing distractions that pull us away from the reality of who we really are and what we need to learn. And we need to embrace the mystery of the mirror, of the reflections we see and those we discover in our hearts.

And then we walk on. Our path, our journey is only partially revealed to us at any given time.

We gaze up-river, from whence we came, notice the distractions and the reflections, all the while heading in a new direction, to an uncharted new world.

Life is a hazy, lovely mystery that catches us off guard, pulls us in, invites us to reflect, compels us to change, and blesses us with the whole process all over again.

For years after trying on and rejecting the term ‘liar,’ I pondered the concept of disowning what I disliked in others, and I wondered why I had hated her for lying. It took maybe another decade of trying to please people, being nice, avoiding conflict, following the rules, and feeling beat up before my reflection revealed that I really was a liar. I was saying I was fine when I wasn’t. I was saying I didn’t need help when I did. I was saying yes when I wanted to say no. I was a self-inflicting liar. I was hurting myself in order to make others feel comfortable. I had to reckon with my own dichotomy, my own hurts and disappointments, my own distractions and stories that were woven together into the cloak of my being. The heat of my hurt and humble embarrassment melted the obfuscating ice, and the calm water revealed my flawed, striving, righteous self. So I walked on in reckoning, recalibration, and forgiveness to the next lovely mystery of a train wreck that caught me off guard. Dear God, help me walk on.

Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go. –James Baldwin