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My truth is a different one than yours

published: 2010-12-09

“My truth is a different one than yours,” she said.  
I had stepped into a coffee shop looking for a croissant and there she was. This lovely woman. A dazzling beauty with an overwhelmingly harismatic smile. Her eyes were soft. She said hello and complimented me for having written a novel. I knew her, but I couldn’t remember how, or when, where? I felt awful because her warmth suggested we must have been friends. I smiled back at her, radiant too, help me a little? Please?
Then she said her name and inside I stiffened for a brief moment. How could this be possible? She was married to a man who has done me wrong. His wrongdoing not only weighed heavy on my wallet, but also on my emotional well-being. The latter being the worse of the two. It led to a full blown depression and so I have always said, “if ever I run into him, I am going to punch him.” And I meant it.
But I didn’t run into him. I ran into his wife instead. And there I stood, feeling happy to see her. I started telling her the story, the details of which I had learned to block but suddenly came gushing back. It was as if I needed to tell her the truth to compensate the falseness of my smile, which in fact wasn’t false. I could see how my story physically impacted her. She too was still smiling, yet her radiance now had a sorrowful edge to it. One of worry. She said she had heard something of this matter but not the full story. She said she was going to ask her husband about it.
I said, “please don’t bother. Don’t worry about it.” And that too I meant. But she said she had to, because that’s how she was. And then she said “we all have our different truths. My truth is a different one than yours.”






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