Masks......

When we were kids, we couldn’t wait to see the stores line their shelves with boxes filled with Halloween costumes.  It was the 70’s, and they were nasty plastic/fabric wonders – think “hospital gown with two ties in the back to hold it all together.  Yeah, those…..  But the best part of it was the mask.  You weren’t that character until you put on the mask.  You couldn’t see, and the elastic band was totally too tight, but you could be anyone you wanted.  Whether it be Superman, Wonder Woman, The Lone Ranger or Princess Leia……. It was so exciting.  Do you remember that feeling?  You could BE an entirely different person.  The power, joy, FREEDOM coursing through your veins…….

It’s all still there as an adult…. But we probably don’t enjoy putting on those masks anymore.  We do it because we “have to” or we need to be someone that we are not.  We might have to use them to empower ourselves, because we really don’t have it inside of ourselves to do what needs to be done.  Or maybe we are hiding something about us that we don’t want people to see.  Possibly we are putting on that brave face that everyone has come to expect from us.  There are so many reasons.  But I have found that as adults, we simply can’t remove the mask.  We tend to just put another one on top of it to hide the first one.  Over and over this happens.  We could barely see through the first one, but the layers are making our sight of those around us and ourselves more obscure.  We come to a point where we finally forget who we are deep down inside, before we started wearing the masks.  I,  for one, would love if we all just dropped them to the ground, but know that is easier said than done.  I’ve created that façade that is hard to break and the emotional insecurities are just too much to handle. 

Wouldn’t it be nice and refreshing though if we all COULD do that?