MASKS

Sometimes we wear masks to protect ourselves, sometimes to portray ourselves in ways we desired to be seen, and other times to hide our searing pain. But the danger of masks is if we wear them for too long they start to infuse into our skin. It starts out as a mechanism of protection, but then we start getting too use to the falsities, just because they make coping with life easier. Then we begin to wear them more and more and more, and the masks start to merge into parts of who we are, and sooner or later they can become who we are, as we forget what it was like to live without them. We forget how to function without an alternate face, and it's all constantly reinforced by our family and friends' tailored perception of us, because those very masks are what they have come to know and what they have come to see as reality. As a result, the lines are blurred between who we really are and what we have become as a result of constantly pretending to be who we aren't; this dual identity can drive some to insanity. Now the question is, is this process reversible? If we pull too hard on the mask now, will it rip off our skin along with it? And so these fears drive some to leave them on forever, as the mask takes on their full identity. Fortunately some decide to slowly pry the mask off- day by day, little by little with self-concocted household remedies that dissolve the infused bonds, but more importantly with the help of others. So there is hope. There is hope that we can live in a world where you can see the true face of people, even though they are not perfect and even if they may be weathered and broken, because that is what makes us beautiful and most of all real.