02 The Five Friends
by V.E. on April 28th, 2008
filed under writing
[This is the first draft of the second part of my Master's thesis/book, Confession.
Comments and questions are always appreciated.]
I have five friends inside my head. I wouldn’t call them friends, exactly, but there are five and, more importantly, they each have an annoying tendency to make themselves known at the most inopportune moments.
I’m not crazy, but I promised myself that I wouldn’t lie in this book; it is supposed to be a memoir, after all, which implies some unearned, pre-established trust between the writer and reader. I intend to keep the promise to the best of my ability. These five people in my head: they’re aspects of myself that I’ve found easier to understand when I think of them as separate beings. I know they’re not real; as far as I know, though, I’m not schizophrenic.
Honesty, the first of my five friends, is a strident, tall young woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. She has confidence, is a natural leader, and can be argumentative and testy when she’s passionate about something. Honesty is, at times, too blunt for her own good, but what she lacks in tact she makes up for in earnestness. She struggles with dishonesty everyday.
Loyalty is a mousy older woman with green eyes and curly graying brown hair. She’s somehow been designated unofficial peacemaker of the group, or she has taken that role upon herself; it’s unclear. She is soft-spoken and chooses her words wisely. Her quiet nature belays her fierce commitment to those close to her. Loyalty is most distressed by personal betrayal.
Belief is a twenties-something Native American man with dark hair and eyes. He wears a feather in his long, straight hear, which tends to be braided or plaited to keep it out of his face. Close to Earth and God, he denies reason when it doesn’t fit into his worldview. While insisting that all people are God’s children, he can be extremely judgmental with those who he decides are unworthy. Belief sometimes has visions and hears God speak to him.
Control is a fiery redhead with a quick wit, a sharp tongue, and a short temper. She has freckles and bright green eyes; she is younger than Loyalty but older than the rest of the group by a fair margin. A sadomasochistic perfectionist, Control must have everything just so or someone is sure to get hurt. She struggles with obsession, compulsion, and addiction—all signs of lack of control.
Attention, the last of the group, is a lithe, flamboyant gay man with platinum blonde hair and yellow-grey eyes. A former circus acrobat, he has always loved the limelight, regardless of whether his actions cause positive or negative responses. Recently, he’s taken up telling amazing—yet plausible—fictions and passing them off as truth. Though he doesn’t realize it, he’s passive-aggressive in every sense of the word; he hates asking for things and believes that others should focus on and cater to him just because of who (he believes) he is.
I explain all this not because I want to make up characters and pass them off as truth in a memoir, but because I have found no other satisfactory way to understand and explain the apparent contradictions between my thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Obviously, I cannot, and do not, look like each of these characters; nor do I act like them all the time, for that matter. I’ve given faces and personalities to these five attributes so that I can write a better, more interesting manuscript.
So, as you’ll see with the story’s movement, the five friends in my head aren’t exactly friends. But they all live here and when I get up in the morning, they all make up the person who is me.
[...] Why words matter 02. The Five Friends 03. When the lying started 04. Bennett 05. On fighting for the disenfranchised 06. Why I write [...]