my heart to A Million Little Pieces

Truth is such a rare thing, it is delighted to tell it.
emily dickinson

When in doubt, tell the truth.
mark twain

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
virginia woolfe

The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.

william sloane coffin

I read A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. Loved the book. Told everyone I knew to read it. I finished in three days. My goal was to watch the first interview he had on Oprah with every page devoured so I could fully enjoy hearing his perspective on "a memoir." Then, last week, applause to my DVR, I watched the second interview between him and Oprah. It was torture. Excruciating for anyone who has been flying high from reading this book cover to cover. I felt betrayed and sad that someone could present something to the world and say it's one thing and then try to take it back with excuses. I felt bad for both of them because they shared such a special moment in the first interview and now, here they were having to duke it out on why it was all so wrong. She confronted him, standing next to the truth. It made me think...What is the truth? Who decided to make the book a true story? Who's responsible? Not the exaggerations, not the what I thought would make the story better but the TRUTH. I believe in bringing the truth above anything else no matter what the cost. And trust me, it always costs something to stay true. When you're true, you're authentic, you're integrity, you're present to what life was created to be. As I watched and began letting what was being said soak in, a part of me thought about how much I enjoyed reading this non-true overly embellished book...I thought about how it didn't matter if the story was true or not because that wasn't what spoke to me in the first place. The book, to me, and I believe to many others, is about holding on. It's about healing. It's about trusting what you know deep down inside about where you are but can't trust your own choices to bring you back because you've become something you yourself don't even recognize. The whole way through the few hundred pages written in a language that was meant to get you addicted to what was happening, I was cheering for recovery, for the pursuit of truth, for love to overcome and for the chance we all deserve to come back from death in the world and become alive. That's a story we all have. It's a part of our own truth no matter the fluff or the label we place on it...We each have a truth, a love that brings us the LIFE we were given to live.