Getting To Know You. Letting You Know Me.

Don’t Be Fooled By Me
Adapted by Anastasia from an unknown author

Don’t be fooled by me.
Don’t be fooled by the face I wear.
For I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks and all of them are me.

Masks that I have not yet learned how to remove to show you the real me. Pretending had become an art that was second nature to me. I was adept at giving others the impression that I was unruffled, that I truly had it all together. “Miss Success” was the name I carried with me. But subtlety and finesse were a game with me. I was play acting that the waters of my being were calm and I was always in command.

My surface seemed smooth, but my surface was a mask, an ever varying, ever concealing mask. Beneath that surface lies an invisible me that had no words by which to express itself. Beneath that surface dwells the real me, sometimes confused and alone but more often loving and happy, simply yearning to connect without knowing how.

So please don’t believe too much in that surface I show you right up front. I am so used to my game that I forget that the genuine me is hiding. Perhaps I am even panicked at the thought of being exposed. That is why I frantically hold onto that mask I have created to hide behind, a nonchalant, sophisticated fascade, to help me pretend and get me by when I am unsure of myself. Or how you will receive the true me without it.

Still I much prefer a knowing glance that sees through my, sometimes, even brazen shield. Certainly I often wear the mask of an intellectual. But that mask is a cover-up for the me that simply likes to smile and play, especially in nature, share dreams or other kinds of imaginings or meditate and pray together. So please don’t be fooled by me. We are wasting such precious time with these games.

My fascade of complete self-assurance without and my inner yearning to be authentic is truly a disservice I am coming to believe. Just so silly. I don’t really like it at all when my life is a glittering but empty parade of masks and my life becomes a front. I bet you just might be hiding too. But isn’t it a waste?

We idly chatter in suave tones of surface talk. We tell each other everything that’s really nothing at all and nothing of what’s everything, of what is crying out inside of us to truly be known. So when I am going through my routine do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully to what I am not saying. Truth be told, I am actually listening to what you are not saying too. Because I really want to know the real you.

I dislike hiding. Honestly. I dislike the superficiality. I’d really like to be genuine and spontaneous and me. But perhaps we do need to share the willingness to put the artifice down in order for it to truly make a difference. We need to make the effort to get off the internet, put aside the texting and voice mail. Make time for unhurried face-to-face time; the resource we believe to be so scarce. But look at the time we are wasting by each of us wearing a mask.

Each time we try to understand one another because we really care to know and be known, we are taking steps forward to develop our humanness. This knowing is really almost the greatest resource we have, you and I; our humanness.

So please give it a chance. Let’s try to beat down those walls that keep us from seeing one another for who we truly are. And, please, if nothing else don’t be fooled by the masks I wear.

999 still on the shelf. If only one mask should fall in 2012, what then?? 998 more to go.

Best wishes for a Happy New Year!

Anastasia, trying to be more and more authentic, day-by-day.