Masks

A mask is a covering for all or part of the face, worn as a disguise, or to amuse or terrify other people.

We have worn masks every day for the last two years in places of employment, grocery stores, when there is are more than one person in a car or there are too many people around while outside. The little face coverings have kept us safe.

There is another kind of safety that masks provide, as well.  Arthur Brooks, an American author says of wearing metaphorical masks, “many of us do this every day when we cloak our identities or true feelings by suppressing our thoughts or acting in certain ways. Some of these masks we like, and some we don’t. Some we are forced to wear to get along in life, and others we wear voluntarily and are afraid to remove.”  As I have been walking through this period in life, I find that I am putting on masks everyday.  Each one, an attempt to hide my feelings and put a smile on my face and try to exist when I am feeling utterly empty inside.  

I have a mask of the successful employee.  Work is a safe place for me.  I am successful at what I do.  I connect with people and use my real life experiences to help them make hard decisions about their loved ones.  I make good money and big commissions.  I am able to donate to organizations that are important to me and I can afford to stock my refrigerator with whatever me or my family desires.  At the end of the day when I leave for my personal life, I remove the mask and have to face the unbelievable pain behind it.  

I wear the mask of the friend.  I am a friend to all.  I believe in putting good out in the world.  I am supportive of those in my circle and even those out of it.  I am one of the first to give when there is a need or a reason.  And yet when I have vulnerabilities, I cocoon away from people. I’m afraid to show too much because I don’t want to be too much. Will people still like me or love me when I have too much baggage or garbage happening in my sometimes tumultuous life?  Am I the one asking for a shoulder to cry on too much?  Am I showing up enough when I say I will be there?  I crave being around people I love and then I get scared it will all disappear.  I used to pride myself on being brave and outspoken.  I was proud of it until a friend once said to me, “Say what you really mean” in the way you know they don't appreciate knowing what you really mean. Do you want me to not be honest or strong or confident?  Those words have created the mask within me of not being as forthright and not as strong and certainly not confident when it really matters. I can walk up to any stranger or give a speech in front of people because they aren’t close to my heart. But put me in front of people I care about and the mask goes on. Do I measure up?

I wear masks of being one of the smart ones or the nice one in a group.  But there are insecurities all over the place-I have some really brilliant friends.  I was told by my mother I was the smart one in the family.  What she meant was I am not the beautiful one.  And although I know much about many things....I am the jack of all trades and a master of none: there are deficits in my education, I often don't think I have enough to contribute and there is not a lot of interesting things about me.  As far as being known as the nice one, people mistake my softness for weakness.  I am often talked down to or patronized because I don't care to engage or fight about things we don't have a lot of control over.  I liken it to making better use of my time.  Out in public however, I show cheer and grace and I attempt to ignore ugliness because these masks protects me from the anguish of being inadequate.     

On the weekends and many times during the week, I wear the mask of an athlete.  I was athletic when I was young.  I played tennis throughout high school and a bit for fun in college.  In my 30s, amidst what might be viewed as a mid-life crisis, along with getting a tattoo, I started doing half marathons.  I call it "doing" because at first it was as a walker and then a run/walker with dreams of becoming a runner.  The truth is if you run, you are a runner and yet I am plagued with feelings of self doubt and thoughts of:

I am not fast enough.

I do not progress enough. 

I am too fat. 

I am not coachable. 

All of the encouragement I extend to others, I look at myself and see it never crosses my mind that I deserve the same.  I have more than 50 medals hanging on racks on the walls of my bedroom of completed 5ks, 10ks half marathons and a marathon, among other races.  I still don’t feel like enough.

Do I still matter enough to run with or race with or coach if I am too fat, and too slow and if I don't progress fast enough?  Am I really an athlete?  Or am I just a fun runner because I have enjoyed the journey and the scenery and the friends made along the way more than I have enjoyed it for the time and the PRs?  It's a mask I am not sure I even understand.  

And then we have the hardest masks of all to take off because there is history and growth and faltering and being human--all rolled up into them: the family masks.

My kids mean everything to me. Sometimes, maybe, they mean too much.  I’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years and although I have done everything I can to rectify my part in bad situations, I find myself constantly never being enough. Or I am too much. It’s the story of my life. I sometimes haven’t held my tongue when I should have.  I’ve done the wrong things. I’m overbearing and too demanding of respect I haven’t been shown. I never had a role model in my own mother as what loving a child in a healthy way looks like. So I've loved as much as I could in whatever way I knew how, learning along the way.  I’ve tried to be a soft place for my kids to land.  I’ve tried to create fun experiences and memories for us in our new life-and I still don’t measure up.  For the mistakes I’ve made along the way, I now tolerate misuse because it’s the little bit of them that is afforded in my direction.  I wear the mask of mother but it feels so undeserving because they don’t want this piece of me.

I wear the mask of the dutiful sister, cousin, niece, and aunt.  Families have weird dynamics and ours is no different.  When we are together, we laugh and have fun.  My heart feels full and I don't want these occasions to stop.  I still fear these instances are too fleeting.  I will do anything for those I love.  I try to stay in the moment and capture every piece of these times as memories I will never forget but the questions in my head are always there:  Will I say the wrong thing or not do enough or react too emotionally?  Am I good enough?  Will they come to me if I don't go to them?  Will they be there for me when I need them?  Will they walk away?  Will I be alone again?  And yet the days go on and I relish every second until it's time to leave.  When it is time to get back to my routine of running with friends and going to the grocery store and walking my dog, my heart can relax a little more because it is easier to not feel all of the feelings.  The mask comes off in the nonce of the mundane and my body mellows.  

For most people, the symbolic masks project how they want to be seen by the world. For me, they amplify what I am not.  I’m tired of masks. Some days I wish people could see who I am behind all of the covers we wear and that I was confident that I would be accepted as just me. The truth is, just like many others, I don’t want to end up like my mother: without friends or family or children by my side as the days ahead of me are less than the days behind me.  My masks protect me from the biggest fear of all:  I don’t want to be alone.