We All Wear a Mask.

Observing people is one of my favorite things to do. I try to really see them for who they are. I listen for the small details they might accidentally reveal during common conversations. I watch for "the look" someone gets when a sentence, scene, or song lyric catches them off guard and triggers a memory they hold close. Everyone has one of those looks. Its a look that is easily undetected if someone else isn't looking for it. 

Sometimes I think that's why I care so much about people that forget me so easily. Once you peel away someone's mask that they wear for society, you can't help but care for them.

Who is the person underneath the protective coat that they portray to the world? The more foreign someone's actions are to me the more I want to know the answers to this question. I guess what starts it is a simple question that I ask myself when I meet someone such as:

• Are you really as nice as you act?
• Why are you so mean?
• Is that smile real? 

I think we all wear a mask. We all have a little part of us hidden away. I know I do. That's why I am so intrigued about what might lie behind another person's. I hate being judged and because of that I have a lot of secrets. They're silly secrets. Like I have secret spots and I do secret things there. They are the things I truly love to do -- my favorite things -- I keep them secret because they are mine.

I feel like if I let someone know all of my favorite things and places then its not completely mine anymore. I'm scared that if I share these things with the wrong person that I'll start to slowly lose myself. Keeping my favorites as a secret is a way to shield myself.
Until someone knows the "alone me" then they never really know me and thus they cant really hurt me.

 

I think most people have a secret self that they protect from being harmed from society. Sometimes maybe this secret self gets damaged a little and that's when people build even thicker walls around themselves. The world is full of more walls than true people. Which is why I always am left wondering, Does anybody ever know somebody else?

We get taller, we get older but do we ever really grow up?

Someone once said, "you make plans and God laughs." Religious or not this saying makes the suggestion that we are are merely pieces in a game that we have no control over. Our lives are predetermined by someone or something else. I hated this saying because I am a rebel. I am uncontrollable. I am wild. Everything I have ever wanted, I have gotten. I beat the odds. I prove people wrong. When I am make plans, nothing and nobody will stop me from completing them. I am a survivor. 

Then, I turned 22, and my plans were interrupted, and that something or someone did laugh. Everything I knew and believed was tested. My hopes and my dreams were ripped away from me. Without them, I felt worthless - less human. The life that I had carefully fought and built fell apart. My frantic attempts to hold it together failed. The 20 year old me would've slapped the 22 year old me and called me pathetic.

I just got tired of fighting. I guess I always thought that once you were an adult, life would be easier. But at 22, I was still fighting the same fight. 

There comes a point in everyone's life when you're officially an adult. I didn't know it, but this was my time. Either I needed to wear my big girl chonies or be homeless, starved, and in debt. It's almost like I had been acting like a grown-up for so long that when the time came...I wasn't ready to be one. I had an incredible urge to run and hide under my bed, to have a curfew, to have rules....anything but bills and work and hardship.

Becoming an adult is quick and messy. You turn 18 and suddenly you're old enough to vote and engage in adult activities. You think you've got it all figured out. You are invincible. A bad ass mutha-effer. Then you turn 21 and your old enough to drink. Somewhere in your twenties real life happens. Suddenly people expect you to be responsible, serious....a grown-up. & for the first time since you turned into a delusional teenager, you realize being a grown-up sucks.

I started to look at other peoples lives - not judging their lives - but considering them. I realized that everyone I knew was experiencing the same situation as me but with their own struggles. I wasn't such a failure after all. This realization comforted me and I began to rebuild my life. This simple attempt at life after complete failure was my first step as an adult.

In some ways we grow up, we have families, we get married, divorced but for the most part we have the same problems we had when we were 15. No matter how much we grow, age, we are still forever stumbling, forever wandering, forever young. 

Things My Papa Taught Me.

I was honestly raised by one of the world's best fathers (or in my case, Papa). He's the man that scared the monsters away and let me sleep next to him when I was convinced that monsters were still in my closet. He taught me how to ride a bike and how to swim. He insisted that I knew how to drive a manual transmission and how to change a tire. He taught me to acknowledge homeless people because they are people too. He was my knight in shining armor.

Then he discovered drugs. The life I knew ended. My Papa was gone.

My life as an adult has been affected tremendously due to his addiction. Most people ask me,"Don't you hate him?" I can't hate him, because oddly enough, the way that I have handled his addiction and how I somehow always maintain a positive outlook is because of what my Papa taught me. Most decisions that I make have been based off of this saying he used to tell me, "Honey, life is an adventure, dare it." So no, I do not hate my Papa. But I miss him -- more than anything.

Today is Father's Day and I'm alone as everyone else celebrates their fathers. So in tribute, I share things my Papa taught me:

1. I learned that being a nerd was alright because when I used to get picked on by my classmates and siblings for being smart my Papa would tell them: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them one day.
2. When I wouldn't do my chores properly: Lazy people always work twice.
3. As a child when I was too shy to try out for the choir, too frightened to jump off the diving board for the first time, and too nervous to introduce myself to the girl who is now my best friend: Don't let fear be why you make a decision.
4. But the most amazing lesson he taught me was: Keep your heart big, don't judge people on their mistakes, but love them for who they are.

So for all those out there with fathers, single mothers, or a type of parental-figure -- appreciate them. Every day, you need to appreciate them -- even when they are bothering the heck out of you. Love their quirks. Listen to their lessons. Remember them. Put those good memories deep into your brain. You never know when those memories will be all you have left.