Truth or dare was a game I played with my friends all the time in middle school. I remember many afternoons spent behind the cafeteria curtains spouting off the craziest things we could muster up. “Maddie, run down the street screaming I love monkeys.” “Maddie, jump into the ocean with all of your clothes on.” “Maddie, hold Jay’s hand for 30 seconds without letting go.” I was always the girl who chose truth. It always seemed so much easier. The truth couldn’t hurt me. The truth couldn’t get me in trouble. The truth wouldn’t get my clothes soaking wet or give my sweaty palm over to the boy who sat next to me. Nope, the truth was easy! Yeah, right…
Last week I had the privilege of spending two days with women who had experienced the unthinkable. They had been beaten, raped, abandoned and so much more. They had experienced and seen things that are unimaginable to most of us. During this time, I was able to stand up and share my story: the good, the bad and the ugly. After sharing, I had a woman come up and ask if she could share her story with me. I, of course, said yes, and followed her out to the porch where we sat knee to knee. She told me how her mother had died during childbirth leaving her to live with her father and stepmother. She described being left outside the shelter her family occupied in the slum because her stepmom hated her. With tears and fear in her eyes, she recounted how her stepmom would lock her in the bathroom for hours on end if she did something wrong leaving her still fearful of small bathrooms. She described how the older (nine year old) boys would find her outside of her home and rape her during the night because they were at the age of sexual experimentation, and no one told them they couldn’t. She fell into my arms and cried as she remembered how her intoxicated father would beat her. She poured out her truth to me.
That was not the only truth I heard that weekend. I heard the memories of men walking out of little girls rooms only to hand their mothers stacks of cash. I heard the sobs of women who still carry the pain of what was done to them. I saw the truth in the physical scars that still linger on the bodies of some of the women there. I listened to three girls as they cried into my arms in the middle of the night and told me about the nightmares they still endure regularly. I heard the truth in the questions of “why me” and “was it my fault?” And in case you didn’t already know, the truth hurts.
As an adult (well, sort of) I find myself wishing I could go back to the days of crazy ocean swims and sweaty palms, because if you were to ask me now, I would probably take the dare over the truth. The truth is hard. The truth hurts. The words spoken aren’t easily forgotten. You can’t towel them off or chalk them off to a silly middle school dare. Nope. Instead, the words penetrate deep inside and linger there. They settle into our hearts and make a home there. The truth brings tears and anger and feelings of injustice and of helplessness. The truth is sticky and uncomfortable and something that, most days, I would rather do without.
So, my dare to you…do it anyway. Even when it’s hard. Even when the truth hurts you, because it is only when we say the words and speak the truth that healing can begin.
XOXO,
Maddie
