Will the genuine “me” please stand up?
My Masks Are Slipping
Everyone wears a few. Do you exit the stage when they start to slip or let the bear behind the mask loose?
As I’ve grown older, I’ve started noticing all the masks I wear frequently… I put one face forward at home and another one at work… One with my gaming buddies and another at the gym… Even a few different ones depending on whether I’m talking to my parents, my wife, my kids…
And each mask has gone a bit askew over those same years. Perhaps it’s the company I’m with or the setting I’m in. Perhaps it’s the age and simply starting to lose my “filter” as my patience with the world fades a little more with each passing moment.
The fun thing these days is, at least in some contexts, I’m starting to care less and less when the “real” me comes out. In the past, I’ve just fled the stage. (Every time I say that I hear Snagglepuss say “Exit, stage left!” echo in my brain from the old 1970s Saturday morning cartoons.) I still flee the scene from time to time. In fact, I’m sitting here writing this article in a coffee shop because I needed to leave my house — it’s being used as a staging area for a party today and between people running in and out and the dogs going crazy, I needed some peace and quiet.
With certain people, I care less when the mask slips. The sarcastic me who quotes movies, television, and music lyrics at odd times peeks out. The crazy me who makes up song lyrics to existing melodies when things don’t go his way.
There are still a few who I try not to let slip out like the angry me who wants to scream at the world to slow down or listen to his oddly self-centered demands. I’m the guy everybody comes to if they need a listener or some odd advice. I’m the guy in the corner who gets walked all over because he doesn’t want to let the angry bear out of his cage. Who wants to listen to an angry bear? Not many folks, I can assure you.
It’s not all the time. If you knew me, you’d probably think that I was just an odd duck with a pretty easy going personality. And that’s true, most of the time.
But that easy going nature only goes so far.
Bears are pretty calm until you enter their territory and push your luck. They don’t wear masks and just let what they’re feeling rise to the surface. I’m debating embracing my inner bear and just cutting loose with whatever I’m feeling — but that doesn’t play well with others.
So do I just let the masks go completely? Or do I continue to keep a few around just in case I need them?
