That Time I Told People I Was A Leprechaun
I’ve been wrong about a lot of things in my life:
I used to think I’d have the same friends forever
I used to think I’d marry a boy. (Lol. Real wrong about that one.)
I used to think I’d live in the same place
I used to think I was invincible and could do anything
I used to think good things happened to good people, and bad things happened to bad people
I used to think my lies were more interesting than the truth
One thing I knew for certain: I was not a leprechaun. But that didn’t stop me from trying to convince people that I was.
Attention-Getting Extremes
In third grade, students arrived to school on March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day) to find lots of green things around their classrooms: candy, shamrocks, and little green “footprints” on students’ desks. When we gathered for morning meeting, teachers alerted us that a leprechaun had entered the building the night before and left little surprises for everyone.
For some reason unbeknownst to me at the time, I stood up in front of all my classmates and said, “It was me. I’m a leprechaun!”
When this happened, I have no idea what looks teachers exchanged, but the students had a lot of reactions: laughter, shouts of “no way” and “really?!” But one of the teachers, Mr. B, took the baton and ran with it.
“Lori, are you sure you’re a leprechaun?” Ms. W. asked.
“Yes, it was me, I swear!” I responded.
Mr. B was quick to chime in. “The only way to know for certain is to measure Lori to see if she shrunk. Leprechauns are smaller than Lori is.”In front of my classmates, Mr. B took out a yardstick and measured me. “Lori, it looks like you have shrunk!”
For the next few minutes, it was game on. As Mr. B played along with my ruse, I even believed I had shrunk. Each teacher pretended to admonish me, saying I spoiled the surprise too soon; but teachers also acted as if they knew all along that I was, in fact, the mystery leprechaun from the night before.
Some classmates believed me and were stunned; others thought I was a fool. I didn’t seem to notice the haters. I was having fun with the attention.
Little Lori Leprechaun
You’d think my charade would have stopped the day I announced to my classmates that I was a leprechaun. It didn’t. Sometime between St. Patrick’s Day and the next slumber party, I had made up an elaborate story about my life as a leprechaun: about how at midnight, I shrunk to an even tinier size, which was how I carried out my shenanigans. In my tiny leprechaun state, I traveled places, messed about in people’s homes—and essentially, was invincible. I had never been caught, in fact, until that fateful St. Patrick’s Day at school. I knew I couldn’t go on any longer without telling everyone the “truth,” and once the green footprints were on the tables, I was bursting to tell people it was me.
But as midnight approached at the slumber party, my friends asked if I was about to shrink.
“Yes, but only when nobody is looking,” I said.
“So if the lights are on, you won’t shrink?” one person asked.
“Yup, it has to be in the dark.”
Suzannah turned off the lights. I slunk into my sleeping bag.
“How about now?” Nancy asked.
In a high-pitched voice, I shouted. “Yes, it’s happening! I’m shrinking.”
In the midst of my shrill announcement, Suzannah’s grandmother turned on the lights. “What the hell is going on in here?” she asked. “What was that screaming?”
I hadn’t shrunk. I was caught. Outed by grandma—who was not amused.
I’m not sure how things went down after that. I know that people stopped believing (or pretending to believe) that I was a leprechaun. But for years after that point, my friends knew me as Little Lori Leprechaun.
The Lies That Become Beliefs
When I reflect back on little kid me, I’m amused. She’d find present-day me a little boring. Little kid me liked to lie, a lot. She had a wild imagination (which was fun!) but got away with a lot of lies, some of which caused harm (not fun!). Lying was a way of getting attention and recognition. Of standing out, even at the expense of others.
For a whole host of reasons (thanks, therapy!) I thought my lies were far more fascinating than my reality. On the one hand, I was doing what lots of little kids do as their brains develop and their social connections form: I was seeking ways to belong. I also was doing what’s natural in the span of human development: I was testing out the nuances of lying. On the other hand, though, there was a fine line between fueling the imagination and lying to feel like I was enough.
Growing up, I didn’t believe that just being me was enough. Eventually, the lies I told became the beliefs I held. I had to be better, more interesting. I imagine this is the case for a lot of people, especially those who don’t fit neatly into the status-quo boxes of our socialization: we are not enough as we are. We get socialized into assimilating, performing inauthenticity, taking on the traits of others’ identities. For some people, it’s a survival mechanism. For others, it’s an unconscious process that gets inculcated into us from our first socialization.
But once we’re aware of our socialization and its damaging impact, it’s hard to unknow it. Shattering the myth of not being enough—of realizing that the status quo does more harm than healing, that there are lies we’re fed from our earliest moments—is the beginning of liberation.
Hold Lightly
It’s easy to see ourselves as fixed. It’s easy to think that our behaviors or beliefs are just how we are. I often hear people say things like “I’m not a math person” or “I’m not creative” or “This is just who I am; take it or leave it.” I also have heard people say, “To get ahead, you need to think and act like a white man” or that being emotional is weak. I’m sure you have heard these things, too, along with so many more lies about the way things are.
The truth is, this isn’t who we always are. Nothing is fixed. Everything is impermanent. Even the beliefs we hold about ourselves and others. Especially the belief that we’re not enough.
There’s a saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. That’s a lie. Thanks to neuroscience research and centuries-long teachings in Buddhist philosophy, we’re always changing. And if anything, we’re constantly influenced by others and circumstances around us. Our beliefs shape our reality.
It’s important to hold lightly to all beliefs, to question where they come from. And for the beliefs that don’t serve us or hurt us, to shed them when we’re ready.
This post is written in the heart of winter, a time where roots grow and seeds get ready to bud. As you reflect on who you are and who you want to be, what feels like a lie you’ve been told, either by others or to yourself? Which lies have become beliefs? Which beliefs do you want to question? Which beliefs do you want to let go of? Who do you want to surround yourself with as you get rooted in the fullness (and enoughness) of who you are?
