My Mask - My [anonymous] Friend

My wonderfully talented and very close, anonymous best friend wrote this poem. It's a tragic yet beautiful story that is unfortunately relatable to many. She didn't spend hours over the correct syntax or word choice, as I do. Rather, she was simply feeling. Those feelings arranged words on a paper to express themselves, and she trusted me to read them in confidence. I believe feelings are common, though private among people. But literature is a way to bring together those that share these commonalities, without breaking any trust or causing any embarrassment. So, with her permission, I am sharing them with you all.

I wear a mask

It covers how I really feel

My smile is painted on

Behind the mask, tears run down my face

Do I look happy?

Society created this mask for me.

All the questions...

All the judgemental stares

"Why are you sad?"

"Why are you in pain?"

My mask stops these questions,

These judgemental stares

Some days my mask is hard to put on

I just want someone to talk to

Someone to listen to me as I let every emotion out

Some days I wish I could just blend into the background

That my mask would encompass my entire body

The mask I wear hides my pain, but it's still there

I still feel abandoned, alone, and worthless

My mask does not erase the pain, it only represses it

Will it ever go away?

Will I ever not miss you?

Time to put my mask back on

Really, I'm fine.

Quote

"You are so good. So good, you're always feeling so much. And sometimes it feels like you're gonna bust wide open from all the feeling, doesn't it? People like you are the best in the world, but you sure do suffer for it."

Journal Entry - May 20th, 2015

The oxymoronic fact that people can be tired, and yet cannot fall asleep proves that opposite emotions can coexist in a person. The world, including people, was created deeper than black-and-white descriptions. And what a blessing it is. 

Imagine. 

Imagine a world where there were only two choices. Two routes. In everything - two colleges, two jobs, two names, two words, two colors... Our world would resemble a black-and-white television. We would never be able to utter the phrase "I love you."

It sounds ridiculous right? If this scenario is so outlandish, why does our world often offer yes-or-no, black-and-white, true-or-false, and A-or-B solutions? War and submission. Love and hate. Legalization and criminalization. 

Wake up and take in the world God created. He made the rainbow of colors because not everything has to contrast. Sometimes things simply coexist equally. He created multiplicity in race, culture, personality, religion, appearance, language, etc. for this exact reason, but we corrupt it. The reality is God has never ranked anything. For example, first and last mean very different things in our culture today. However, Jesus Christ was referred to as the "Alpha and Omega," meaning "beginning and end." It conflicts in our minds, due to our false manipulation of the words. The truth is, we can't dumb down God's creation, including God's word, into something we can understand. We'll never understand Him. That's why He is God and we are us. That's why there is faith.

The grey area isn't all that grey.  Yes, diversity in our world means diverse problems. That also calls for diverse solutions. In addition, diversity means uncountable kinds of love, beauty, and passion. "Conflicting ideas" only exist because we manipulated "difference" to mean "oppose."

 I am both tired and unable to sleep. I wonder why, but I do not deny that in fact both feelings are happening at once. We accept the rainbow's mystifying beauty, with its array of very different colors coinciding equally within one body. We look at a rainbow as one of the most beautiful, natural phenomenons on our Earth. Imagine if we looked at diversity in the rest of our world under the same light. Imagine how beautiful Earth would appear. We must realize the beauty in the "grey area" because that's where our world exists.

Anonymous

Shakespeare: Sonnet 127:13-14

"Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe, / That every tongue says beauty should look so."

These lines are the last of Shakespeare's 127th sonnet. Before these, he describes his love for a woman whose appearance doesn't fit the conventional mold of beauty. These lines struck me because it's the first time he describes how this utopian idea of beauty affects an imperfect woman. Even in the 1500s and 1600s women compared their appearance to an unattainable one, which resulted in "woe" and "mourn[ing]." Though he loves her like an addiction, she still believes she is less than beautiful.

Women. It's time to love ourselves. We are "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). God doesn't make mistakes. He put that freckle, that curl, that curve, that color, that smile there on purpose. You are the only you there is, has been, or will ever be. Own it. Believe it. And run with it. Be yourself because no one else has what you have. We all have the opportunity to be ourselves, but that doesn't mean the same thing for even two of us. Difference and inequality ARE NOT synonymous. 

"Beauty is fleeting," but love is forever (Proverbs 31:30). 

Love yourself, girl. You deserve it all.

Anonymous

Journal Entry: March 11th, 2015

"The closer people are to the truth, the more tolerant they are of the mistakes of others." -Leo Tolstoy

When I first read this quote, I disagreed. I thought about if my boyfriend told me he cheated or if someone told me they stole my car, I wouldn't automatically be tolerant of their actions.

Then I reread it but capitalized The Truth. It changes the whole quote. The Truth as in "the way and the truth and the life." The closer we are to Jesus "the more tolerant [we] are of the mistakes of others." The more we nourish our faith, whether it be through Bible study, worship, prayer, or service, the closer we get to The Truth. When we become close to Jesus, He inhabits and purifies our hearts. Only through this God-given spirit do we have the potential and ability to graciously and consistently forgive others as He does for us everyday. 

Christ died with all of humanity's sins on His shoulders so that we don't have to. We don't have to take our debt to the grave because it has already been paid in full. When we completely forgive others, we give a glimpse of Christ. When we make this a daily practice in our lives, those glimpses will eventually create a full picture for someone. Because of Jesus' sacrifice, this picture will not only change their life, but change their life eternally.

"Thomas said to Him, 'How can we know the way?' Jesus said,'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to The Father except through me.'" John 14:6