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The Unknown Masks we Live Behind
We are wearing them all the time. Do you know you are? We know we are wearing a mask, or hiding parts of ourselves because we are exhausted from the life of performing for people.
We come home for work and pass out after meeting after meeting with people we would never hang out with. We cannot wait till our kids go to bed, so we can have a glass of wine, sit, fold laundry alone, or watch something adult-ish on the TV. We dread going to the in-laws or to our own parents because they are super chatty, full of questions, and opinions.
There is one common denominator between all of these. The people we spend our time with, be it children, adults, or elders, all want something from us. And that something is a version of us. It is not the whole of us. The whole us might not be welcome there. Or, we might not have a full vision of what that even is yet. We just know we are exhausted.
We have to be careful about what we express around our children. “Little pitchers have big ears”, said Pa in Little House on the Prairie. And Pa was always right. But bosses don’t usually care about how our personal beliefs influence our decisions. Our mothers are confused by or even terrified of all of the ways we will not mother like them. Our friends might be able to do better, but not all of the time.
