Where was she now? My rambunctious and sneaky Sophia was nowhere to be found. Still in her footie pajamas, it was easier for her to be stealthy. I retraced my steps through the house. When I came back down to the living room the quiet was eerie. I heard the slightest shift of her. From where? Behind the chair? I knelt onto the chair with both knees so I could peer over the back. In the corner, nestled behind the chair was my two-year-old, her face full of cookies. She didn’t just get caught with her hand in the cookie jar, she had the entire cookie jar in her lap.
In my mind’s eye, it could have been twenty minutes ago instead of over 14 years. Of all the millions of memories I could have of my girls, this one is a favorite. I have wondered why this one has stuck with me. It strikes me as strongly today as it did back then, how surprised I was that she instinctively knew to hide her shameful behavior. At only two, she already knew that when you are literally indulging in bad behavior you should hide it.
I see that we never outgrow that knowing. I see spouses all the time hiding money, hiding lovers, hiding habits, hiding addictions, and hiding feelings. They do it during the marriage and continue when the marriage is ending, and it is always the shameful behavior that is pushed into the darkness. I have accepted it as human nature. We do not want people to know that we have devious urges and worse yet, that we act on them. And yet we all do it. Every single one of us.
