Sometimes...

Sometimes it is difficult to live with oneself more than with others. It is difficult to rise up to the standards that one has set for oneself. Simply because it entails going against one’s innate nature, against one’s likes and preferences. It is a tight rope walk because one can neither abide nor evade. There are moments when one has to keep up appearances and that is uncomfortable. The awareness of having to seem different from what one actually feels preys on the mind and yet it is not always viable to express. It is a weird dilemma. While I don’t like the mask, one cannot remove and throw it away either. Lots of things depend on it, not just things, others, and relationships are all hinged to this mask that I wear. While it may not be deceit as such, it still is not complete honesty either.

Having to face the not so pleasant facets of oneself is difficult. Even when there is no fear of judgment, still it becomes imperative to seem otherwise and then one feels inadequate and petty.
There are situations in daily life that one does not welcome and yet one is obliged to seem comfortable. There is just no other option. Because that is the right thing. Just that one does not feel like doing the right thing always. Striving to be a better person than one actually is a strain. And then one has to pretend that one enjoys doing the expected thing. One has to smile a lot, one has to make small talk, one has to laugh…and all the time I have this weird feeling of watching me going through all the expected motions. I hear this tiny voice in my head chuckling and making fun at my efforts.

Where is the real me? Who is the real me? What do I really want? The people who have grown to like/love me – is that the real me? I’m not sure. I know myself as this temperamental person who is moody, easily irritable, who loves most spending time with herself- and who is that other gregarious person chattering away, laughing heartily? Oh, that other person does look like me- but no that is not the Real me.
The facets that people get to see of me are just slivers of the whole- while not entirely phoney, they’re still not the true me. They’re interacting with a very temporary, fickle facet that vaporizes in solitude.

And I want to shake these people who think they know me, who think I’m this nice, sweet person, I need to tell them- I’m not what you see and you may not like what you don’t get to see. I’m stuck with this sticky, pesky mask but I cannot throw it away either, for if I peel it off, it will come away with my skin and all and that would be a pretty ugly sight! I know because when I look into the mirror I see me without the mask- warts and all!