Masks

The following is something I wrote when I hit a point in my life where my optimism and, as I now say, naïve trust, in people was taken for a ride that ended with a heavy dose of cold reality. My butterflies and red balloons suddenly replaced with ugly spiders and deflated magic.

“And so it is, everyone wears a mask.

Some shiny and new portioned out for new roles, new people, new experiences. Dozens in our closet marked up, discarded, broken from use and no longer functional. We rotate them in and out like clockwork. One goes off, one goes on. Switching them only in that brief eye flicker that makes us look for a moment for something we thought we saw that was real.

But we usually don’t notice, we’re too busy adjusting our own mask.

One to cover our eyes.

One to cover our face.

One to shield us from others.

Another to shield others from us.

Who sees any of us without our masks?

Who can we trust?

For what friend does not whisper words of disdain? They mock and glare at the person to their left; do they not mock me to their right? They whisper my secrets to a hundred ears and cover the secret with a “tell no one” as if there is someone left to tell.

What friend sees my blemish and does not slit their eye in a slight of comparative judgment?

What person can I take a piece of my heart and in utter confidence hold it out, naked, bare, exposed?

And know… they will not meet it with honey on their lips and mockery or ambivalence in their heart?

What human can I trust? Not even myself.

For when I look in the mirror I am wearing my mask.

Even my closest friends walks from room to room switching masks unaware as I switch mine; scrabbling to hold on to them for a question that reaches too deep.

I am unaware, they are unaware, all the hidden parts, all the undiscovered lies we don’t even know we ourselves hold.

I go to sleep even with my mask on now. Accustomed to it’s weight I no longer trust even myself.

If I am naked

Who then will I trust to love me?

If they are naked

Who then will they trust to love them?

No One. And no one cares.

No one. We are all busy with our own agendas, switching our masks from one party to the next.

To busy holding tight to even see what we are protecting,

and what we are protecting it from.

Longing for that unabashed nakedness where we can revel in the security of trust,

But too afraid to be the first to remove our mask. "

This is a beautiful quote I heard as a narrative on a show once and I love reciting to myself in whispers as I walk down the street.

"We are none of us alone.
Even as we exhale, it is inhaled by others.
The light that shines upon me, shines upon my neighbor as well.
In this way, everything is connected to everything else.
In this way, I am connected to my friend even as I am connected to my enemy.
In this way,there is no difference between me, and my friend.
In this way, there is no difference between me, and my enemy.
We are none of us alone."

~unknown (to me)