I sometimes feel too vulnerable around being so transparent on my blog. But, I have to write about this journey! Writing is what I do to make sense of the world. It is an internal force that pushes relentlessly, and there is no trying to hold back that inner need to write. Publically? Maybe it is something of a calling, to explore and share. Maybe I just want people to notice me. Maybe I want to help others. Maybe all of the above.

Another thread in the drive to tell it all: My mom was 25 when I was born and she just died, so I figure that I have around 25 years left. It does not seem like much, but when I think about the last 25 years and how much has happened, it seems like plenty of time. I want the next 25 years to be better, more fulfilling. Now, I know that seems like an odd statement to some people because they see me as living the perfect retirement life. I do love my lifestyle, and this process is not about changing up how I live. It is internal; I want to be a better, less self-absorbed person. I am tired of the cloud that too often hangs over my head. I am tired of crappy relationships. I want some kind of inner freedom for my damaged, broken soul. Letting the darkness see daylight here on my blog helps.

I am also tired of living behind masks. I talked about illusions created by rose-colored glasses. Masks also help with the illusions. Two of the movies I checked out from the library this week (coincidentally) deal with masks: Behind the Mask” and “Beyond the Mask” In “Beyond the Mask,” a young person frees himself from his past. In “Behind the Mask,” an older person breaks free and goes on to live a more fulfilling life in his retirement years. Both of the movies have a sappy “Hallmark Movie” quality to them, but they are both excellent.

Mask

Noun, Merriam Webster Dictionary

We all make a great effort to build a false front, like on a movie set that creates an old west town from flimsy cardboard storefronts. The false fronts, or masks, are what we present to the world, the story we want everyone to believe. Masks help us fit in. They help us cope. They let us believe we are ok. Society encourages us to adopt a socially acceptable mask. Family pressures help shape the mask. However, masks put limits on life and it is hard to let them go. I know many retired people who cling so tightly to the mask they lived with earlier that they seem like caricatures of themselves. I have met others whose masks are built from the stuff they accumulated, and they talk only about all that stuff (houses, motorcycle, motorhome, boat, investments, special collections etc). I have met compulsive travelers who move with obsession from one diversion to the other (museums, natural attractions, special views, zoos, famous diners), perhaps in hopes that the mask will never slip; they seem to be on the run rather than travelers. 

I learned more about masks in an article in Psychology Today  The author writes about two kinds of masks, the false-positive and the false-negative. We can wear some of each at the same time. The false-positive masks make us look, well, positive in the eyes of others. Examples: the mask of success, of living a perfect life, of having it all. I am a hard-worker, perfect parent, wonderful daughter. My family is perfect. The false-negative masks project bad qualities, like rage, greed, fear, doubt. I know people who live behind a mask of fear. I know someone very smart who lived behind a mask of being uneducated and slow.  I was living behind a false-negative mask when I was viewing myself as a victim and I am struggling now to cast off all the other negative masks I collected in my lifetime. 

Family can be really invested in helping us create masks. I remember when, at one point in my life, my dad would introduce me as his daughter, Jane the Botanist. I have BS in Horticulture but had only one official botany class. Furthermore, I was never a botanist, and I worked as a horticulturist for less than 10 years. But even after that, my dad was trying to define for me a mask that said I was a botanist. Wow, that had so many cool connotations for him. It made him feel better about my failures and the fact that I was an unhappy single mom just trying to get by. Sometimes my mom tried to force masks like that onto me as well. For example, when I started seminary studies, it was actually embarrassing to her since she is an avowed atheist and anti-Christian (her church that I mentioned is Unitarian). She would tell her friends when she introduced me that I was in Women’s Studies (more acceptable) because at the time I was, indeed, taking courses about biblical women. 

More often, though, mom was casting me with a negative mask – too adventurous (irresponsible), alone (unsocial), wild (undisciplined and nonconformist). Somehow, I became the black sheep of the family by moving away and trying to build my own life. Even recently, one of my brothers introduced me to someone as the “black-sheep” of the family. Wow! About a decade ago, another one would scream “Hippie” at me and laugh every time he saw me during a week-long visit home. He did that maybe 10 times during that visit. Sometimes it was just when we first met up for lunch or some other get together. Sometimes he continued calling me “Hippie” and laughing for 10 minutes. When we departed from the event, he started again: “Hippie!”  Now, I like the term “hippie” but he was using it in a negative way, and he was acting as a shame surrogate for mom. My oldest brother screamed at me and called me a “feminist” as a way to shame and discredit me in case I ever decided to tell my truths about him (not yet). Again, I like the term feminist, but it was a big negative to him and to my dad who hated women. They said feminist as in “Femi-nazi”. 

An aside: For those who act as surrogates, here is information about the Narcissist’s Flying Monkey. 

The shaming and heckling didn’t bother me much. Even the recent “black sheep” comment didn’t bother me because I recognized what it was. However, I still have an extremely difficult time when people in my real life try to create negative masks for me. How that usually goes: I get buttons pushed and react in a positive, assertive way. The pusher, who needs to villainize other people to distract from their own shortcomings, pushes again. I react more negatively this time. Push again, react again, and the pusher can now point to a “pattern” and call me crazy. Yes, there is a pattern there, but not necessarily what they think. It is a pattern of negative trait projection.

Sometimes I feel like I have a target on my shirt that says “push my button”, but then isn’t that the victim mask again? And of course, I certainly am far from perfect and have more than my share of times when I contributed to negative mask formation in others. 

Does anyone live without masks? Should we try to move out from behind them? According to the two idealized movies that I saw this week, it is possible to emerge.  The article I mentioned earlier made some interesting points on this as well:

“As we take off our first layer of masks we begin to create the possibility of intimacy.”

“We are not limited by story nor defined by life’s experiences, circumstances or other people!”

“What we are looking for, lies a peacefulness and acceptance of our Selves, for who we are deeply and for all our masks.”

“The path is not simple and it is likely a life’s work. But the invitation is clear. We can continue to put on more masks, moving slowly but surely away from ourselves, or we can let some of our masks drop away, slowly revealing more of who we are.”

I found a story about removing our masks at a Buddhist site. One of many points in that article, ” I have found that when I am willing to step out of my comfort zone, good things will happen. I need to trust that.”

Dropping my own masks here has been scary but worth it. In the 25 years (or so) that I have left on this planet, I really want to have more peace. It is everyone’s right to pursue the great challenge of living whole. Call me crazy, unstable, a black-sheep, Feminazi, hippie, or even a Botanist. I have heard it all from people who try to define me with negative masks.