Two weeks ago my aunt came to Chicago for a medical convention. She’s a nurse for the County of St. Louis specializing in HIV & STD treatment and prevention. We had dinner and as usual she had a few stories to tell. Blew my mind.

She told me the story of a 6-month-old baby who came in suffering from a major ear infection that they could not cure. Finally she asked the parents had they been tested for HIV or AIDS. The mother said no. And the father said yes, “About 20 years ago. But I was fine.” Longer story shorter he was not fine. He has been on file as HIV positive since 1986. He’s been positive for all these years and never told his girlfriends or even his wife. Twenty years.

How could someone be so cruel and careless? My aunt and I talked for a while and it finally hit me. This man at some point decided that his status would change if he chose to ignore the facts. He’s been lying to himself for all these years. Of course he has lied to countless others since, but it started with him convincing himself.

On my way home after dinner this particular story kept running through my mind. It took a while for everything to register but once it clicked it made sense to me that a great majority of us are like this. Not saying that you or I would lie about having a potentially deadly and contagious disease. But we all convince ourselves sometimes that things are different than what they really are.

The young lady at the club wearing an outfit two sizes too small… Before she left the house she had to convince herself that she looked cute. Or the punk, who’s not tough but thinks he’s a thug… He’s got to lie to himself to keep that façade convincing to those who don’t know any better.

I started thinking a lot about my own situations. One of my ex-girlfriends was cheating on me. I was in denial about it for a long time. But I caught her on the phone with another guy. Of course she lied and told me she wasn’t. Then another time I caught her male “friend” creeping over to her apartment at 11 something at night, after she was too tired to have me stay. We still talk to this day. And if I bring up either of these two situations, or any of the others, she has completely put them out of her mind. She knows that I know the truth. But she can’t accept the fact that she did something wrong in our relationship. It’s like instantly she cleansed herself of the matter by ignoring it. It never happened, in her mind.

And I’m sure that there are things deep inside my mind that I have buried. It’s easier to be something that you are not. It’s easier to be delusional. But “karma” is a mutha’. And at some point we all have to deal with the truth behind the lies that we so often live…..