I believe that inside us all, perhaps when we were children, there existed a mental picture of who we were meant to be, of who we thought we were. Sometimes that image gets lost in the myriad experiences and images that others try to impose upon us; sometimes we can't measure up to the image.
When these things happen, we arrive at a crossroads: whether to continue to try to become the person we always wanted to be but couldn't quite manage on our own, or whether to hide behind a mask.
I am an expert at masks. I see them all of the time, now.
That wasn't always the case.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. To tell you my own qualifications, allow me to tell you about an epiphany I had my Freshman year in college. I was drunk, and I had mixed Valium, which was then thought to be a very harmless drug, with my liquor. I had thought nothing of it. I'd been on Valium since I was eleven years old with no ill effects. I didn't get drunk either. So, no one ever told me that the combination could be deadly. I remember looking into the mirror in my dorm room and seeing my face split into pie pieces, each with a name on it. I looked for me in the center, but there was no me...there was no center. The pieces were what every "name" thought I should be; so to that "name" I was this person; to another name, I was a completely different person. But I had no center. No person called "I" without another person to reflect in. I resolved that moment to find who I was...whether or not it killed me. Knowing who I was became the most important thing in my life, as I realized that living or not, "I" was non-existent.
I lived, as you may have gathered, much to the consternation of the doctors who were called in. "One more drink, or one more pill, young lady, and you wouldn't be here today." Little did they know, that until that moment, I hadn't existed in a very long time.
I was saved in more than one sense that day, but it had little to do in my thinking with religion, psychology, or human behavior, or with fear for that matter. It had to do with survival. My survival. Somewhere along the road, I'd misplaced myself, and replaced "Me" with other people's expectations of who they thought I should be. I had become an adept at masking.
Oh, the problems when I tore off the masks and jumped off the pedestals!
"I don't know who you are anymore" was the common response. I was thinking, "Join the club. I have no clue who I am either, but I'm going to find out if it kills me."
Then I remembered when I was a little girl that every time I thought of myself, I saw this sweet, nice, caring child, who couldn't understand why so many people fought, couldn't see what was before their eyes, and why we couldn't just all love one another. (Believe me, I realize this was a bit naive, but I was naive.)
Later, as I examined my "self" closely, I saw remnants of this kid who cared, but only just. I didn't care. About anyone. I only wanted them to care about me, so I became a mask-maker and wearer. (Sorry, Taymor, I came way before you.) But mine didn't look like masks at all. Mine looked like me, or the me the person I talked to thought they knew.
Taking off the masks terrified me. What if I was the "Invisible Girl" when I removed all of the masks? What if there really wasn't any center to me left? (There really wasn't much left, sad to tell.)
Well, then I'd just have to build one. I began slowly, but finally there was a person...a real one, and I cared. Boy, did I care!
Then came the "Masked Men."
Now, you'd think after all I'd gone through, and all my expertise with masks, that I'd have been able to spot a mask at a glance. Nope. Something very odd had happened to my eyes. I never saw masks, even the very heavy, carefully contructed masks that had taken years to perfect. Totally wasted on me.
What I now saw, though I didn't know it at the time, was the REAL PERSON, the person who was supposed to inhabit that masked body, but who was as lost in the masks as I had been.
So, I related to the person, not the mask. Now, as a mask-wearer, people who ignore masks are very scary people. They see the very things masks are supposed to hide.
To tell you the truth, I don't know to this day whether this ability I've acquired is a gift or a curse. It's certainly not always pleasant. Imagine seeing Dr. Jeckyl when Mr. Hyde is standing in front of you. But the real person is Dr. Jeckyl; the horror that is Mr. Hyde is a fictional terror that has taken over the real man. Mr. Hyde is a mask. That does not make Mr. Hyde any less dangerous.
Why do people wear masks? Oh, lots of reasons: to impress, to hide perceived imperfections, to please, to run from ourselves or what we think we are. At bottom: it is the ultimate self-deception, because in time, the mask becomes the person to the point that that person cannot distinguish between the false and the true.
I just wrote a short piece about Ebenezer Scrooge. Why is this Dickens' character so ingrained in our psyches? "A Christmas Carol" is not just a Christmas story for children, is it? No, it's much more. It's the story of a self-deceived man, a martyr to his own generosity to whom life has been cruel. Money became his god without his knowing it...do you really think anyone sets out to be a monster? So "Scrooge" became the mask, and Ebenezer, the man, was lost...almost beyond redemption. Almost.
I shall digress yet again, because that's what I do best, and tell you another story within the novella, The Great Divorce, by C. S. Lewis. It is a story about a busload of spirits on the way to Heaven.
Not all decide to stay there. It is too REAL.
There is one instance in the book which tells the story of a man, whose wife is waiting for him in Heaven, when he gets off the bus. He appears to be a tall, dashing orator or actor, who holds a puppet on a string. The man speaks and the puppet dances. But the wife ignores the tall man, and stoops down to talk to the "puppet." She urges him to let go of the string and get rid of the "actor" who is growing stronger by the second. He will not, and finally the "puppet," who is the real man, vanishes, leaving only a hollow actor puppet to return to the bus on its return trip to Hell.
A fun story? Not to me. Not to Scrooge. Not to several "masked men" I've loved, known, watched die, and disappear.
OK. So why am I writing this semi-autobiographical piece? Because Scrooge lived! He chose to change. He chose to look himself in the mirror and say..."So that's who I really am! Do I want to be that person? NO! And I won't be that person anymore." And he changed, and he lived out his days in joy and bringing joy to others.
Is it easy to strip off the mask/s? No. I'd be the last person to tell you that. It's excruciatingly painful, especially if you've been crafting really good masks.
Is it worth all the pain? You bet!
How do you strip off a mask? You take a long hard look at what's behind the mask. You see yourself as you really are...the bad and the good. (Some people have a hard time seeing anything good, but look harder; it's there.) Then decide what kind of person you want to be.
You're going to fail. I won't kid you. I've failed so often I've lost count. But Christmas is the season for Redemption. There's a reason for that: Nothing you or I have ever done, ever will do, or are in the midst of doing right now is beyond God's forgiveness. Take it from a Prodigal Daughter. Ask for forgiveness in Jesus Christ, and you will get it. Don't wait for the boom to be lowered; it never is. Instead you get the Father running toward you with his gown girded so He can get to you faster. You see, He's been waiting for you to take off that mask. The fatted calf is already on the spit.
Merry Christmas!
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