Monika Basile's Blog: Confessions of a Bleeding Heart - Posts Tagged "masquerade"
It's Only a Masquerade
Because at the end of it all, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or says. It only matters what you do. If you shout out big words of “someday” and do nothing, you haven’t gotten anywhere at all. You are musing aloud and ruminating but are you brave enough to actually work towards the immense uncertain future of someday? Are you actively seeking your life and living in this wonderful world feeling the experience? Or are you merely dreaming?
This world is full of dreamers and that is indeed necessary and good. However, dreamers should not stop at dreaming and begin doing while they dream. So much of ourselves we keep hidden, afraid to take a chance and tip toe out into the great unknown because we might fall flat on our face. We might hurt. We might fail. We might just humiliate ourselves in the midst of it.
I can’t even count how many times I have embarrassed myself or been a fool for love or like or even infatuation. I still cringe when I think about it. “How could I have said that? How could I have done that? Why the hell did I expose myself like that and set myself up to be hurt?” And slowly this has caused me to build walls around me—this place of failing and fear. It has caused bars to go down, guarding my soul from more of the same. I didn’t even realize it and I don’t like it one darn bit.
I have considered myself to be a very open person. I expose the inner workings of my psyche all the time here in this blog and to anyone who cares to listen to me. I talk all the time about the real things in my life and how I feel and what I think. I never thought I was one of those who hid herself anywhere anymore. Yet, I realize I actually do and I really, really don’t like that at all. I wear the “mask” at times that all of us do, afraid to let others in to see all of the real things.
The thing with masks though is that they eventually interfere with your breathing, with your vision and your nose even begins to run and you get all hot and sweaty and not in a good way. I am sure hiding my skeletons and plastering a mask to my soul has hindered me in many ways. It has stopped people from connecting as deeply as they could, as deeply as I wanted and still want and need.
I don’t want to be hurt. I don’t want to be humiliated. I don’t want to be rejected. No one does. Everyone clings to their masks as a means of self-protection. What are we protecting ourselves from? Its life—all the parts of life when we refuse to peel the mask away and just let ourselves be exactly who we are. We protect ourselves from truly having the love in our lives that most of us so cherish the dream of having. We put ourselves at a disadvantage because eventually the truth comes out, our secrets are revealed and the being we have become as well as the being that is our core shows itself in one way or another.
We count down nervously to that someday finally arriving. The dream of removing the mask becomes somewhat of a nightmare as we think of bearing our soul, of allowing another to love us with our warts, our creepy skeletons dancing about and our dirty little secrets that will eventually sneak up on us. We worry about that moment finally arriving, or maybe even arriving in several smaller moments, when we finally stand there feeling naked and vulnerable allowing the one we dreamed of to see us as we really are.
When someday comes they will know exactly how crazy we really are, how we have ridiculous fears and annoying habits, that we have done something awful a time or too, that we are not perfect in any way and that we, without the mask, are an actual reality. We are no longer dreaming big dreams in the midst of “someday’s” arrival. We are simply living them with baited breath that the person who is discovering the reality of who we are accepts us and loves us anyway.
Monika M. Basile
This world is full of dreamers and that is indeed necessary and good. However, dreamers should not stop at dreaming and begin doing while they dream. So much of ourselves we keep hidden, afraid to take a chance and tip toe out into the great unknown because we might fall flat on our face. We might hurt. We might fail. We might just humiliate ourselves in the midst of it.
I can’t even count how many times I have embarrassed myself or been a fool for love or like or even infatuation. I still cringe when I think about it. “How could I have said that? How could I have done that? Why the hell did I expose myself like that and set myself up to be hurt?” And slowly this has caused me to build walls around me—this place of failing and fear. It has caused bars to go down, guarding my soul from more of the same. I didn’t even realize it and I don’t like it one darn bit.
I have considered myself to be a very open person. I expose the inner workings of my psyche all the time here in this blog and to anyone who cares to listen to me. I talk all the time about the real things in my life and how I feel and what I think. I never thought I was one of those who hid herself anywhere anymore. Yet, I realize I actually do and I really, really don’t like that at all. I wear the “mask” at times that all of us do, afraid to let others in to see all of the real things.
The thing with masks though is that they eventually interfere with your breathing, with your vision and your nose even begins to run and you get all hot and sweaty and not in a good way. I am sure hiding my skeletons and plastering a mask to my soul has hindered me in many ways. It has stopped people from connecting as deeply as they could, as deeply as I wanted and still want and need.
I don’t want to be hurt. I don’t want to be humiliated. I don’t want to be rejected. No one does. Everyone clings to their masks as a means of self-protection. What are we protecting ourselves from? Its life—all the parts of life when we refuse to peel the mask away and just let ourselves be exactly who we are. We protect ourselves from truly having the love in our lives that most of us so cherish the dream of having. We put ourselves at a disadvantage because eventually the truth comes out, our secrets are revealed and the being we have become as well as the being that is our core shows itself in one way or another.
We count down nervously to that someday finally arriving. The dream of removing the mask becomes somewhat of a nightmare as we think of bearing our soul, of allowing another to love us with our warts, our creepy skeletons dancing about and our dirty little secrets that will eventually sneak up on us. We worry about that moment finally arriving, or maybe even arriving in several smaller moments, when we finally stand there feeling naked and vulnerable allowing the one we dreamed of to see us as we really are.
When someday comes they will know exactly how crazy we really are, how we have ridiculous fears and annoying habits, that we have done something awful a time or too, that we are not perfect in any way and that we, without the mask, are an actual reality. We are no longer dreaming big dreams in the midst of “someday’s” arrival. We are simply living them with baited breath that the person who is discovering the reality of who we are accepts us and loves us anyway.
Monika M. Basile
