It's been a while since I've actually been honest with myself. Is that a coming-of-age thing? Is that apart of the "phase" parents and therapists use to confine the years of awkward adolescence? I don't think it should be.

For the past three years of my life, I have been somewhat of a pathological liar. Using "somewhat" is the only defense I have, if I am being honest with myself. From the start of my high school career, lying always seemed to make things effortless and painless. Nevertheless, it was the strangest scene, witnessing harmless fiction turn into an ogre that ate away at the disgusting remains of my life. An ogre born from Black Ink Lagoon, A.K.A my imagination.

You would think that in the melodramatic way I portrayed my dilemma that it started with a grave and somber event. It didn't. The first time I deliberately lied for my own selfish need was on my fourteenth birthday to my mother. I simply told her I would be sleeping over my friend's house. In reality, I was sneaking out with the aforementioned friend to stay with twenty-year-olds in a basement about an hour away from home.

Nothing happened. Not a single consequence.

I felt as free as Pocahontas felt chasing leaves. Seriously, it was extraordinarily liberating for a misanthropic bookworm with a six o'clock curfew. So, I started to do it more often, lying and lying until I began staying out until four AM every Friday and Saturday night. Then, I went and dove into a relationship with a guy that was twenty-one, drove a Jeep, and lied more than I did.

Of course, I lied to my mother about that, too. Then, I lied to the majority of my friends about it. Worst of all, I lied to his sister about it. The sister that was in my grade and gym class. The sister that didn't even deserve to be lied to. I would hide from his family and wasn't even allowed to call that much because he didn't want his parents finding out. I lost so much and it was my fault, I know. Yet, I kept lying about cutting off communication with him.

Finally, after he'd cheated on me countless times, I let go of those feelings you hold for your first relationship. We still spoke although everyone else thought we didn't. We hung out on occasion and I had to occasionally hide from his family. The only one who had anything against me was his sister because she knew all along. It was awful that I messed with her life at home the way I did with my relationship and then friendship with her brother. If I'm being honest with myself, she's the sole reason that made me admit I have a problem.

Now, I'm here. I made mistakes. Actually, no, I'm just an awful person trying to start over. It is not an teenage phase. I admit it. But, I'm slaughtering that disgusting ogre I created. After that, well, I'm just a four-year-old with a billion chewed-up Lego pieces. I can't build the person I want to become in the next twenty-four hours and I can’t continue being who I was. Every step will be a Lego pieces, I guess. It will be no use going back to yesterday, because I will be a different person then.