When Truth Becomes a Casualty of Memory

 

When Truth Becomes a Casualty of Memory

There’s a certain kind of man who rewrites history as easily as some folks rewrite shopping lists. You know the type: the hero in every scene, the martyr in every argument, the long-suffering husband who tried everything while his wife just sighed and looked bored.

Yes. That one.

So this is a hypothetical story, of course. Completely fictional. Pure imagination.

There once was a woman who married a man who spoke about truth the way a fisherman speaks about the sea — with flair, drama, and a flexible sense of scale. Somewhere along the way, facts became optional. Memories became foggy. And wherever the story landed, strangely enough, he always came out looking like a saint polishing his halo with a bar cloth.

And the woman? Well… she became the villain in his retelling. Or sometimes the clown. Or the cold fish. It depended on the audience, really.

One of the favourite tales he spun was about how she was never interested in intimacy. How he tried everything. Everything. (Cue dramatic music and sympathetic sighs.) Meanwhile, back in the land of reality, she spent years quietly wondering why she wasn’t enough — not thin enough, not pretty enough, not desirable enough. She cried. She prayed. She went for help. And she learned how to ache quietly so the neighbours wouldn’t hear.

But in his version of the story, she was the one turning away.

Convenient, isn’t it?

Another crowd pleaser was the myth that she was always wanting to sell everything. Restless! Impulsive! A wandering soul with itchy feet and a “for sale” sign in each hand! Strangely, in the real story, he was the one constantly selling at a loss — but let’s not let accuracy spoil a good narrative.

For years she swallowed these distortions like bitter medicine, telling herself it didn’t matter. But the thing about lies — even the silly ones — is that they bruise the skin of your dignity. And you can pretend it doesn’t hurt, but your nervous system knows better. It will lie awake at 2am tapping you on the shoulder saying, “Excuse me. We need to talk about this.”

The older she grew, the less she felt the need to argue. She realised that people who need to twist the story are usually just laundering their conscience. And that truth — stubborn, quiet truth — doesn’t panic. It doesn’t race around defending itself. It just stands there. Solid as a church bell tower. Ringing on its own time.

So this hypothetical woman made peace with something simple:

She knows what happened.

Her soul knows.

Her tears remember.

Her body remembers.

And she doesn’t need a jury anymore.

The people who matter will see her heart in how she lives now: steady, honest, soft, tender, brave. Not perfect — just truthful. And that is enough.

And as for the storyteller?

Let him keep polishing his legend.

The truth has all the time in the world.