Honesty: The best policy?

Trust. Loyalty. And honesty. These are the qualities that I value most. I am the kind of person that can forgive anything. That is, unless you lie to me. If you lie to me you lose my trust and if there’s no trust. We're done. Or at least that’s what I would like to think. 

Then it hits you ... The situation. My friends and I always play this game -what would you do if... And you answer thinking you know yourself, inside and out. And I’m not saying when we played we were naive to think our answers wouldn’t change. Our answers. Yes. My values? No.
 
Friendship and honesty. Intertwined? Definitely. But what’s more important. The friendship. Or that lie told?   

I mean lets be honest here; It's hard, it's complicated. White lies, right lies, lies to protect, we all do them, even me, no; especially me. Hypercritical? I hate to admit it but yes. Oh my God, I can hear myself saying it now. "Kids, do as I say, not as I do." 

Don't get me wrong I try to be honest at all time, the nickname bitch has followed me for a reason after all. If anything, or so I have been told, I in fact need to learn to filter. But no, I do lie, I lie to make a story sound funnier, I have lied to make me sound better. And I have lied to “friends” I didn’t want to see. But I guess there a line, a line you don’t cross or in other words the people you don’t lie to. Is my list longer than others? Yes. How I feel about that? Ancient history. 
  
What I trying to say is; I hate to be lied to. But is there a point in hating if when it happens all I am going to forgive? It took some time to get there but yes, there is. Values and standards, they’re personal. They're not meant to be pushed onto others, especially friends.  

So, to maybe disappoint the cliché, I won’t be using this space to write the words I can't say aloud. Anything I say here, I would have already said or be willing to say outside of cyber space. I am going to keep the me in both places honest. Because that me. But I can’t speak for my friends, so respectfully all their names will be changed. 

I worried that I was losing my values, but I forget, trust. Loyalty. And honesty. These may be the qualities I value, but my friends; they are valuable. When you look at it like that. What can’t be forgiven?