
We all wear masks. Sometimes you run into people who are convinced they want to see the real you. I always suspect this is like the person who says, “I really do want to know how you are”, but always ends up regretting asking the “how are you?” question if you are indeed honest with them about how you are doing. The only ones that can handle the people we are behind the masks we wear are the individuals who genuinely love us.
Only in the safety of real love can we begin to take the off our masks and confidently be ourselves with someone else. And, when I say love, I mean real love – beyond a superficial affection that can change with the wind: love is a real, unchangable force. You either always love a person, or you never loved them at all. Love is constant. You can fall in and out of infatuation, you can fall in and out of lust, you can fall in and out of friendship, but you cannot fall in and out of love. And, anyone who says otherwise is lying to themselves and everyone else.
The truth is, while we do wear masks to protect ourselves, we wear them just as much to protect the other people around us. Most people simply cannot cope with who we really are.
What are some of the masks you wear?
Sometimes a mask becomes so much a part of us that we begin to even accept ourselves better with the masks on. Most people don’t like themselves, let alone love themselves, so it can become easier to be fake with yourself, as well. I know I do it. Vulnerability and authenticity – even with oneself – don’t always come easy. However, most of the time, I am rather brutally honest about my warts and all – to myself, anyway – and I’ve chosen to be painfully honest in this blog. As one blogger I admire puts it, “put away your rainbow and be real.” I think it’s nearly as annoying to be superficially positive all the time as it is to be genuinely negative 100% of the time. I don’t sugarcoat much of anything. I can afford to be rather transparent. But, I assure, I have protected you from a lot that is me. I notice that when I do dare to share a bit more of who I am, it isn’t well-received. People just ignore it all together because…as I say, they can’t handle it. If it doesn’t compute, if it makes your brain go tilt, if it isn’t really relatable to a wide audience, then it doesn’t make for the best blogging fodder, does it? Certainly, the number of likes I get on some posts, as opposed to the total lack thereof on others, confirms my theory. Then, I always end up coming back to the question, “Why do I blog?” To answer that question I must go back to the tagline I wrote when I started this blog.
While I’d love to touch a wider audience, this blogging experience is for me to express…MYSELF. Whether YOU can handle it or not, whether you like it or not. I do this for the sake of the fragile, broken, wreck of a person behind the mask.
No One Else But Me (Behind The Mask)
Take it off
Put it down
All of these pretences
Curious?
Do you want to know
Who dwells behind the defences?
You should walk away
You should understand
The walls are there to protect you
Just as much as they are there to protect me
Behind the mask, behind the mask
There’s nothing you want to see
Behind the mask, behind the mask
There’s nothing you want to be
Behind the mask, there’s nothing left but me
Nothing else but me
Look at me
Feel the pain
And all that longs for freedom
Can you stand
To hold my gaze –
The anguished eyes of the broken
Please don’t walk away
You should understand
The walls come down only by love
Take that chance and you’ll find out
Oh, you’ll learn
You must learn
Behind the mask, behind the mask
There’s all that’s left of me
Behind the mask, behind the mask
Desperate to be free
Behind the mask, just scared to be
No one else but me
– © Autumn Dawn Leader