COVERING AND FINDING YOURSELF

I have been operating under a mask for a long time.

I can't even decide the right image to use for this...  Under a mask, a leash, in a fishbowl? Maybe it doesn't matter.  In the end, I simply haven't been myself.

I have felt like I needed to cover up who I was. I needed to make her prettier. I needed to make her different. Why? So that other people would be okay with me. Or because I felt that I had to portray a certain image because of things and people that I was involved with.

It's really only been recently that I've come to take that off a little and have really begun to understand just how suffocating it is to not allow yourself to be you. How constricting it is to always be hiding what you think and feel, to always be playing a role.... and how the more you play it, the more you lose who the real you is.

And you finally are pushed to the brink and you rip off your mask/leash/bowl and step into the light and it feels so good.  But at the same time, it's awfully scary.  Because you're not quite sure who you are in the light anymore... and now you have to find her.

But it's a good kind of finding.

THE MASKS WE'VE FORGOTTEN

What kind of masks do you wear? What does the world think about you that isn't quite true?

I remember once, I was talking to a friend that I mostly only knew online... and I was confiding about how much I struggle with worrying about what people think of me, or about the people who I know don't like me or about my own self-consciousness.

She was incredulous. She had no idea and thought that I always seemed so confident, so sure of myself... that me being self-conscious never even entered her mind as a possibility.  Not only that, but she said that she admired me for that confidence.

And it was so outside of what really lies in my heart that I had to laugh.

I think I'm pretty open here in this blog, so probably my insecurities wouldn't be a surprise to the people who are regular readers here. But, you guys, I'm a mess.  I'm a jumbled screwed-up mess of self-doubt, self-consciousness, self-everything! Half of the things I write here are pep talks for myself. And sometimes I worry that you're going to think I'm a broken record, that I just talk about the same things over and over, and I'm crazy in the head for not being able to let things go.

But you're right!  You're not wrong at all.  I am crazy in the head and I just vomit this stuff all over the internet. But I can't seem to learn the lessons, and I still need the pep talks.

Maybe I'm just stubborn.

Sometimes even I don't know the masks I wear. They're comfortable, and they're familiar. And they cover up the things that I'm afraid to reveal. But, over the years, I've worn them so much, I think they're me. I've forgotten that they're masks, and that they aren't really me.

Sometimes I need to remember.

2013 THEME: CHOOSE WHO YOU WANT TO BE

Choose who you want to be, 

despite what anyone else does, says, or thinks.

In the end, I suppose this was my theme for 2013. It's something I stumbled across early in the year, and I really liked its idea.  But, I kept returning to it over and over as the year wore on.

I suppose that I am (and perhaps we all are?) a pretty responsive person. I don't act so much as I respond. I change what I do and think and am, based on what other people do, think, and say about me.  And perhaps that isn't un-understandable.  It's difficult to not let those things affect us.  But, I came to a decision early on this year that I was responsible for who I was. I was responsible for what I did and thought and said. And it wasn't okay for me to blame other people for those things.

Because, at the end of the day, I got to choose who I was.

And who I was... it wasn't dependent on other people's choices and thoughts and words.  Those were their things to choose.  I couldn't control those things, and neither should I try.  But what could I control?

I could control me. I had power over me. I could choose the person I wanted to be and I could make choices based on that person.

I'd love to say that I was a rousing success.  But, it probably wouldn't be true. I often had to be very strict with myself and reprimand, "No! You get to choose. Don't change who you are, the person you want to be, the kind of friend/parent/etc you want to be, based on someone else's actions. Let them be responsible for them. You be responsible for you."  Sometimes I listened.  Sometimes I didn't.

But I think I'm ending the year content in those choices. Part of me wishes that I'd chosen deliberate action more often, and responsive action less. But, I think I'm ending the year content in the choices I made, content in the times that I went right along being who I wanted to be, no matter if anyone else was on the train with me or not.

Be the person you want to be, Jo. It doesn't matter what anyone else does.

I think I'll take that into 2014 with me, too.

HARD WORDS TO SAY

These are hard words to say and sometimes I just don't know how to say them. Or sometimes, I'm worried that, if I say them, you won't hear them right or you'll hear the wrong tone and you won't understand what I'm trying to say in the first place.

So I say different words. And we talk about different things. Because the things I really want to say are too hard, too fraught with danger, too untrustworthy.

But, the hard words are still there. They haven't gone anywhere and there are parts of me that still need to say them. That still need to be heard. So I bury those parts and I bury those words and we don't talk about the things.

Because they are hard to say.

LETTING GO OF WHO I'VE BEEN

I've changed.

I'm not who I was a few years ago.  I've grown. I've matured. I've altered the things that are important to me, and I've tweaked my focus. I care about different things than I did. I've learned a lot about trust, about friendship, about people -- about me. I've been hurt, and I've been healed, and I've learned to let go and move on and embrace new things.

But sometimes I still want to hold on to the girl I was then. I want to be new, but I want to be familiar, too.  I want to keep things that I lost, even as I'm embracing the things I've gained.

I've learned to let go of a lot of things --  and I'm learning that it's okay to let go of who I was, too. I'm learning that it's okay to change and it's okay to be different.  It's okay if I don't always recognize the girl in the mirror and it's okay to take awhile to get to know her.

I'm learning that I like the person I'm becoming, and it's okay to be her.  And it's okay to say goodbye to the girl who lived in my skin before.

BEHIND THE MASK

You hurt me.  But, I put on the mask so you wouldn't know.
You confused me. But, I put on the mask so you wouldn't know.
I failed again. But, I put on a mask so you wouldn't know.
I have dreams that are bigger than I think I can accomplish.  But, I have masks so you won't know.
I'm afraid that you will kick me when I'm down. So, I put on the mask before you know you have an opening.

A thousand reasons, a thousand different masks.  And I wear them all.

For what?

So you won't know that I can feel pain?  So you won't know that I don't always understand?
So you won't know that I'm not perfect?  So you won't know my heart's desires?
So you won't know that I'm afraid of what you can do to me?

I do. All of these things, I do.

But, I'm afraid for you to know. 

I'm afraid of your rejection. I'm afraid of your indifference. I'm afraid of your words.
Sometimes I'm just afraid of your silence.

I wonder, on quiet nights like this one, who I could be if I wasn't afraid...  who I could be if I had no masks to wear and no one to fear.

I wonder who I would be and how I would be different.

If I was the person behind the masks.