I love words.And there are times, when I read a quote that I’ve never seen before, and it just grabs me, that I wish I had written it.I’ve even wondered how only a few words, put together just so, can have such power.And how no one had ever thought to put that particular combination together before.

This was one of those quotes for me:

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would be split open.”Muriel Rukeyser

Seriously.What would happen?

We all hide. (And if you say you don’t, you’re not telling the truth about your life.)We’re all hiding from each other, from ourselves, from God. But what if we stopped the hiding and the pretending and just said what really needs to be said, just said those words that hurt coming out of our throats. Those words that paint the picture of what’s really going on in our hearts. The ones that cause us, and sometimes others, to have tears roll down our cheeks that we can’t brush away fast enough.

I’m working on this. Okay, my closest friends would say I’ve been working on this and I’ve got it nailed. I tend to tell the truth. The ugly truth. The more-than-you-may-have-wanted-to-know truth.

But I look at it this way. If we’re all just trying to get through life, figuring it out the best that we can, and I act like I’ve got it all together, and you act like all your ducks are in a row, and she acts like nothing’s wrong, and he acts like how could anything be better…then who are we helping? (And who are we kidding?)

Because the truth is that my life is a difficult thing from time to time. Sometimes, it’s much more difficult that I ever would have signed up for. And if all I do is put on my make-up and make sure each hair is in place and my outfit not only matches but is trendy and I walk up to you and answer with a hearty “fine” to your “how are you?” and keep going, I’ve done you a terrible disservice. Because you just might be hurting too.And maybe if I told the truth and answered, even once, “not so great…how about you?”, something could actually split open, like your heart or your thoughts or your life or your world, and you could see that you’re not alone and we could walk that road together for awhile, and you know what? It would be beautiful.In fact, it would be magnificent.

Because I’ll take truth and hard and beauty over fake and just fine and blah every single time.