The ashes of bridges burnt drifted in the air around me, dancing to a tune orchestrated by the campfire flames. The falling snowflakes played percussion, hissing a rhythm as they died on the hot stones. I stamped my boots on the frozen ground, trying to get some feeling back into my feet. My cast off soul, just as cold and numb, lay huddled somewhere in the past, and no amount footwork would bring it back to life, or back to it's home. But I was here of my own volition, a failure to keep my spiritual life from sliding backwards into a pit of fear, resentment, greed, and self-pity. A practiced avoidance of doing the right thing, of dealing in what works, of using the currency of compassion. I took the easy way out, following the well-trodden path of denial, investing in anger, which always accumulates interest and whose bank never closes. I exchanged acceptance for suspicion, honesty for trepidation, equality for disunity. I offered a packaged deception, a gift of deceit, neatly wrapped in a convenient lie. Pretty to look at, but it won't stand up under a cross-examination, so don't inspect it too closely, and definitely do not open before Christmas.
The trouble with lies is that they require too much maintenance. They have to be washed and waxed, lubricated, fueled and insured. They have to look good, but not too good. Nor can they be overly ugly or noisy, and attract attention. They can't be ignored and parked out of sight, out of mind, for they never are. When I tell a lie, it sits heavy in my gut, a hot cancerous lump needing to be excised. It requires the immediate surgery of confrontation, humility and atonement, lest it develop and grow into a festering mass with a life of it's own.
I had looked across the table at my wife and admitted my fraud. "You lied to me" she had said. A look of utter betrayal and resignation descended over her, and just as quickly a curtain of withdrawal was drawn between us. "I told you once before, when you lie to me, it's over". I felt her twist the blade I had thrust into my own heart. And just like that, the marriage was over.
