Masquerade

It appears that the blog I was referring to earlier is likely to have been taken offline because of its content. The author had opened her heart and attracted too much heat for it.

Sigh. Add another mask to the many that hide one’s true self. Who are you, the real you, if not the unique collection of thoughts and feelings housed inside the vessel of your body? Yet it is the masks of body, associated identity and self-created adaptations which hide our true selves from those around us.

Some of us are prisoners of our own bodies. Have you ever consciously declined to see the real person behind the huge muumuu/coke-bottle glasses/plastic pocket protector/tudung, having already made assumptions and judgements based on their appearance? How many pen-pals and online-chatters have believed that they are liked, needed, wanted but are then greeted with the crushing silence of rejection after meeting face-to-face with the other party?

Then there are those who are rendered invisible by the identities of others. So-and-so’s Husband, so-and-so’s Kid, Datuk Big-shot’s Wife, Ms. Hottie’s Far-From-Hot Brother, the Other Woman. Mr. Julia Roberts.

In our daily lives, how many of us are seen?

DZ chose to blog as herself and gave her readers, many of them strangers, a window into her mind/soul. But obviously, some people didn’t like what they saw and now she pays the price of giving expression to who she is.

I’ve spent more than half my life hiding behind a mask. When you find yourself in circumstances you cannot change and you’re to chicken or guilty to kill yourself, the best that you can do is to create a cocoon of false identity in order to fit in. Heck, for my parents, I’ve got the full works - a full-body clownsuit, make-up and all. :)

Masquerade…paper faces on parade
Masquerade, hide your face so the world will never find you…
- From the Phantom of the Opera

It’s tough, denying who you are just so that those around you can feel comfortable. Ok, hold on now, don't give me that simplistic lecture:-

Who cares what other people think?
It’s not about what they think. It’s about the hell they’re gonna bring down on you.

They’ll just have to accept you as you are.
How do I ask of them what I myself cannot do?

Just be yourself.
Oh, if only it were that simple.

Sometimes, there you are, minding your own business and quietly being yourself. Lalala… Then for whatever unfathomable or pure selfish reasons, the act of being yourself actually hurts other people. WTF?? But, there you go, it does happen.

Sometimes, you try to explain to other people why you are the way you are. Or you speak your mind and state the facts as they are. And you end up with loads of people getting their knickers in knots or uncomfortably changing the subject.

When faced with the granite walls of small-mindedness, indifference and ignorance, do you bash your head against them till a bump the size of Sri Lanka springs from your forehead, or do you be the bigger person and kwai-kwai-ly do what is necessary in the circumstances? Far easier to choke back the tears and whisper to your poor heart "it’s ok, we can do this" than to watch people turn What’s About You into What It’s Doing To Them.

For so long, I hid, unable to express the words in my heart and the me in my mind. The loneliness was somewhat alleviated by finding it echoed in the lyrics of others.

I hear my voice and its been here…
silent all these years.
Years go by will I still be waiting
For somebody else to understand?…
Years go by will I choke on my tears
Till finally there is nothing left?
- From Silent All These Years by Tori Amos.

Dress me in scarlet,
Ribbons and bows, so everyone knows
I’m hiding a face that hadn’t the grace to go free
Dress me in shadows,
Sad April skies have opened my eyes to the lie that I live
Given the river away
I’ll change these clothes if I want to,
and I do.
- From Scarlet by All About Eve.

I’m tired of the silence, yet am so used to it that doing an Oprah show on my life is just too much to take. Some close friends have been shown the person behind the mask over the past few years. Whilst I appreciate the no-questions asked acceptance, there is still so much that hasn't been said, that cannot be understood. How would they be able to understand, if I myself still find difficulty in answering my own questions? And so I’ve chosen to write here instead. Pictureless, nameless, genderless. In these words I seek clarity. In these words I hope to find the language of my heart.

It’s really rather freeing. With this, at least I know that when it’s time to go, there would have been witnesses to my life. To finally have people truly see Me.