My Mother Taught Me How To Lie.

When I was in seventh grade and unruly and angry, my mother and stepfather took everything out of my room but my bed. My beloved computer, my books, notebooks and paper, stereo, everything. They also briefly considered taking my door off it's hinges, but compromised to just keep it propped open until it was time to go to bed. I had a strict schedule I had to adhere to that dictated everything to when I did my homework to what time my showers were to what times I was allowed to read.

My punishment was a result of my rudeness. Grady couldn't stand how rude and disrespectful I was, and my mother had long since buried her backbone somewhere too deep for my tears to reach.

I don't mean to say she didn't love me.

She was simply too tired to overrule Grady's opinion.

If I did not answer with a quiet, demure, "Yes ma'am/sir," to questions, I was heavily reprimanded and reminded of all the things I stood to gain. If I did not remember my “please and thankyou”s, I received a twenty minute lecture on manners. If I was not a Southern Belle, I was treated like a heathen.

It reminds me of Red Plan, here at MSA. Then, I resisted my parents. With everything I wanted soundly out of reach, what else could happen? What other restrictions could they place on me?

It became a sort of game; a one-sided, immature game that I strung my stepfather along in.

It was stupid of me.

Eventually, I figured out that you have to play by the rules to get what you want. You don't necessarily have to accept the system, or like authority in order to grit your teeth and squeeze out some niceity.

So I did. I was just a demure and peaceful as could be. I yes ma'amed and no sired my ass off. Somedays it was an honest attmept to better myself.

Mostly it was a lie.

If you habitually lie at home, it is very unlikely to be completely honest outside of it.

With this newfound power to make my mother smile and believe my every word, I started to wonder who else I could fool. Who else I could play with.

And you know what?

If you figure out how to let just one lock of hair fall into your eyes, how to smile with just the corners of your mouth, how to cave into yourself, how to speak quietly and aticulately, how to be the picture-perfect definition of "vulnerable," everyone will believe you.

No one will turn you away.

Everyone will tuck you under their wing and protect you.

It took my mother a month and a half to rebuild her spine and tell my stepfather that she did not believe in his way of parenting.

It took me three years to decide that this "cute" image I had built for myself was not what I wanted out of my life.

I am still reeling, wondering how a disguise that worked for so long can be so unacceptable in the real world. In 8th grade, everyone wanted to be cute.

My graduating year, two boys have broken up with me because they feel so "responsible for me," and people are starting to see through the cracks that used to be invisible.

I don't lie anymore. At least, I try my hardest not too.

But whenever people criticize me, I remember that it was my mother that taught me how to lie.