To combat an extended writer's block, I've decided to use this site for a prompt once in a while; perhaps it will be a weekly occurrence. Random.org will generate a number for me, and I'll chose the prompt that occupied that slot on the website list.
Today's #: sixty. Write about the biggest lie you've ever told.
I probably would have never told my mother I wasn't a virgin had I not gotten pregnant. For that matter, no one would have known. It's not that I didn't have friends. I had lots of them, many close enough that we assumed we knew everything about each other. Loosing my virginity was a horrific experience for me, and living as a secret non-virgin was agony. I knew without a doubt that I was hell bound, that I had screwed up more severely than I ever would again, that I hated myself for letting my life play out the way it had. I didn't trust anyone with my secret for fear of it leaking. I didn't even venture to confession with my burden, not because I was too ashamed, but because I was honestly that scared of being found out. I'm not sure what I thought would happen if someone were to discover me. I think I feared embarrassment and the opinions that other people would hold of me. I didn't want my opinion of myself to be shared by anyone else.
My sweet baby girl saved me in more ways than she'll ever understand. Were it not for her, I'm sure I'd still be carrying around my secret. Instead, that weight was lifted by her presence. The stress was replaced by the tumult of teenage motherhood, of a disaster marriage, of judgement from others of a different kind. Somehow none of that weight has ever been as heavy a load as the months that I spent hidden from everyone who loved me. Suddenly I had someone to stand up for, and in standing up for her, in being a better person for her, I found myself capable of standing up for myself too. It's funny how becoming a parent changes a person, changes relationships. Suddenly the standards I held for myself were raised because, after all, there was someone watching me now. Someone learning how to live her life by the way I lived mine.
