ThisPublicDiary

I’m a liar.
In my book, lying is pretty high up on the list of terrible things a person can do.
As a child, I can’t say I was 100% truthful. I infamously once told my pre-school teacher that my mother had twins- four years before she actually did.
But as I began to grow up, honesty seemed more appealing to me. In movies, books and even sometimes in real life, it always seemed like the situation could be solved if everyone was just honest.
Lying was the evil that caused so many broken hearts and frustrating story lines.
But who are we kidding?
I’m a liar, and I most lie when I am speaking to the one who it is most important to be honest with.
G-d.
Yeah, that’s where I’m going, but who can blame me? It’s erev Yom Kippur.
That fact is also why I’m thinking about all this.
It’s the day before the holiest, most revered, and most terrifying day of the year.
On this day, it is decided if I should live until next Yom Kippur.
Therefore, one would expect excellent behavior leading up to it, and if not all week then definitely the day of!
But oh. I am human. So desperately, sadly, wretchedly human. And as much as I imagine G-d looking down at me, judging my actions, analyzing my intentions…it’s still so easy for me to choose wrong.
I said mean things today. I thought (very) badly of someone. I judged someone wrongly. I lied to G-d and hoped He would pick up my slack. I told G-d I’d work on myself. I tell him that every day, I tell him that all the time, yet here I am. A very slightly altered version of myself from last Yom Kippur.
I lost someone this past year, and still I can not truly understand that G-d chooses who will go each year.
I still live my life as if G-d doesn’t actually care.
But I know He does.
Because when I pray each morning with tears in my eyes, I know Someone is listening.
When I lay in my bed, filled with anxiety and fears for the future, I feel calmed by Someone.
I expect G-d to be there with a tissue at any time of day.
Yet I don’t give him the decency of me actually working on my self when I say I will.
I don’t want to be a liar this year. I want to be honest. I want to be real, and I want to be a better person next year.
I won’t make promises that can be broken.
I will say I will try.
I will try to stop lying, no matter how uphill the battle becomes.
I pray that G-d knows this Yom Kippur that people lie sometimes. That children lie most when they don’t realize what it means.
That children lie when they care about what is thought of them.
G-d, I am sorry. It is Yom Kippur, and I ask for your forgiveness.
I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.
And that is the most honest I have ever been.