Sleep Talking

Tracey Lord (not the under-age porn star but the character from my high school years in the sitcom of my life) is explaining, nay apologizing, to me for sleep talking to me last night. She has no memory of our 10 minute conversation other than picking up her phone and the degree to which I was animated.

Apparently, being awakened by the phone ringing triggers an immedite white lie response of, "No, I absolutely was not sleeping!" in Tracey.

This got me thinking...don't we all have little lies we tell for no apparent reason. I don't mean the kind of lies to spare feelings, "No, mom the meatloaf is delicious" or "Yes, dear, you look lovely in that dress!". Perhaps the kind of lies I mean have more to do with saving face. Though, I'm not even sure if that captures the sum of experiences in this variety of lie. It harms no one and it serves no apparent purpose, but unconsciously we blurt it out and then stick to it--because, well...we've blurted it out, so in the sticking to the lie we save face.

I mean, I don't care if she was sleeping. I don't judge her. It was 3am on a tuesday, why wouldn't she be sleeping? But, at the time she involuntarily flexes her truth deflector muscles and insisted to me that sleeping, she was not. Now, the amazing thing with Trace is that she comes clean with me, today. We've been friends so long and she's clued me in on enough lying schemes that the tedium of keeping lies straight with me has been obliterated from our relationship by copious amounts of truth. I'm her vessel of truth--there was a time I helped her keep the lies straight, but now the drama wanes in our "old age" and there is no need for me to assume that role, so I don't since she doesn't need me to.

It's not about the sleeping. The latent issue with these lies is understanding why we tell them. They are obviously rooted in something from our unique, individual psychodynamic pasts. So, what do you lie about? Why?