Maybe

Maybe all men are a drug, and they can pick you up or make you crash so hard. That is my addiction, I think, the high. Feeling that someone might care, just a little or even a bit. I believe that the hardest thing to let go of is something you never truly had. That which was dangled just out of reach, teasing you, making you feel like you could love having that which you never felt you deserved. Love.

When do you stop, is it when you’ve tried everything you know you possibly can without giving your soul, or do you give that too? When have you done everything you can? How do you know when it is time to give up? Pack up and rebox yourself?

Pain is a funny thing. If you keep on smiling no one can see the scars on your soul, and if you keep on pretending, that which you feel will surely go away, will it not? How long do you have to pretend to be okay before you actually are? What is the point of all of this if we are meant to repress that which we feel, cause society wants you to smile through the tears on your soul and the cracks in your being.

If you cry and no one is there to comfort you, does it really matter? More importantly, do you really matter?

Today

Today, I will hold my head up and be okay. This is my pep talk for today. I will smile even when my face starts cracking. I will even smile at the lady who almost drove into me and then swore at me. I will stand tall and sit upright, with a focus that I do not have today. I will simulate togetherness. Why? 

Because I need to. We need to keep up appearances, see. We can't be broken in a broken world - no one would accept failure, honesty or hurt. No one will love you if you are not perfect. You have to put on your face and keep pushing. My mom used to tell me that the world doesn't stop because of your heartache or pain. Nothing else falls apart, except you. Oh and don't worry, when one thing goes wrong they all tend to spiral.

We have this strange compulsion to being what the world expects us to be. And even if we simulate it all perfectly, we still end up feeling like crap, because it is all just a simulation. Like a character in a fantasy game, or one in Days of Our Lives. Not real.

But what is real? Can we fake an emotion enough times and make it believable, or even real? Can we keep on faking and eventually believe what we've been faking? Can you get so tangled up in the masks you wear daily that you don't know which one isn't a mask?

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

When will we start admitting that we are all shipwrecks? Of course you pitch up to work and you do what you're supposed to, and you paste a smile on your face cause nobody wants to look at a sour grape, but don't be someone you're not. Still be yourself. Don't simulate a character to live as, you are better than that. You have unique talents, ideas, experiences and thoughts? Contribute!

There's a difference between striving to be better and faking already being better.

Masks

Every morning when I look in the mirror, I ask the girl staring back at me:
Can you see that I've fallen from grace,
and that this is not my natural face?
She answers that I might be showing at the seams and that another fake smile or maybe money given to a beggar would make me feel a bit better.

Why do we do it? We package ourselves so differently from what we actually are. Any overwhelming emotion tends to be oppressed. We should love - but not to fiercely, hate - but not completely and live - but please not too loud dear.

When all is said and done what do we have left but our stories, yet we always tell our stories with a bit more love than was actually expressed and a bit more hate than was actually conveyed. We need to learn that it might be okay to not be okay and we should just be true to who we are. Say what you need to say even if you fear rejection or failure.

“A human being is nothing but a story wrapped in skin.”
- Fred Allen

We need to live a little, love a lot and laugh even more.