Remember to Wear your Mask

I can't allow anyone to see who I really am, last time that happened I got a scar too deep to forget...

It's Monday, the first and the longest day of the week, and school makes it oh so much better, but it's fine, we move on and put our brains on autopilot until Friday, at least during, most of the day. It is so tiring, being someone you are not, but not impossible. At some point in life, we all become something we despise for the sake of protecting something we love, I did just that, although, very early in life, I hid with a me that everyone liked and no one wanted to hurt. However, I came to find that sometimes people need to hurt others in order to like them, they need to feel superior in order to be comfortable, so even then I was hurt, even when they didn't want to hurt me, some of them still did, because in this world you can be perfect, or try your best, but one alone cannot accomplish what takes two to do. What am I talking about, I'm talking about friendships, intimate relationships, family bridges, any type of commitment that takes the bare minimum to make it work, and some people still have the audacity to treat them like they are nothing.

I used to be a very introverted person, as a child I always kept to myself, I enjoyed time by myself, but I was never able to find something to motivate me to progress in life. My parents always pushed me to find new hobbies, socialize, and find myself out there. I wasn't achieving that in my room so I decided to give it a try. My parents were the only people I really trusted and talked to, they had been there for me always no matter what, so I had to give it a shot. I was going into gr 9 too, high school with new people, new system, everything was different so I thought, why not find a new me, as much as it went against my very nature, I had to change to survive in a different environment. That is something that has been present in my mind ever since we moved if you are unable to adapt to new environments, new situations, new conditions, you will be washed up, left behind, and unable to advance in life. That is where it all started, high school, who knew that in only four years my life could change so much.

I went in with a new perspective and a new mindset. It felt great at first, I made friends easily, or I think I was at least, it wasn't too hard relating to people and finding things to talk about. We had classes together, similar interests (many, not all), but most importantly, some of them were actually willing to put in the effort to talk to me and create some type of bond. It went well during grade 9, it was the beginning of my "big revelation" if you wish to call it. Then grade ten came along and so did love, I fell hard for someone who I later realized was toying with me, I just hadn't realized yet. She was beautiful, funny, and she knew how to get my attention, and I was new to the game so I instantly fell. We were on and off up till grade eleven when I realized that I had been blind all along. During this time period, I also came to the realization of was actually my friend, who was there to push with me and who was there to take advantage of me when I was doing my best. Grade ten was a good year nonetheless. In grade 11 I fell in love once again, but that time I made it work, it was out of this world, I realized that what I felt before was not anywhere near what I understood as love, this was the real thing, but of course the greater the rise, the greater the fall. Ironically I didn't think it would work at first, a lot of things were going to get in the way in the future, the stress from school, university, moving, and so on. Yet I thought, why not give it a chance, after all, I wanted to do it so giving it a chance lowered the chances of it being impossible. As expected, it ended, even though I wanted it to last so much more, forever even, but life has never been that easy.

Believe it or not, that was not what hurt me so much as to change my perspective in life. It hurt a lot, like nothing else before, but actually, she was a reason why I believed that being an extrovert was good. She taught me to approach more people, to believe in myself some more, and chase my goals with confidence. I opened up to her and she didn't judge me, she was disappointed but not because I was introverted, but because she felt I didn't trust her enough to show her my interests and the way I liked enjoying my time and so on, which was understandable. Imagine thinking you know someone just to find out they are someone completely different, it isn't fair for you. I understood how she felt so I decided to do the same with my friends, even after we had broken up I felt that it was still the right thing to do, and that was my mistake. What I had with that girl was more powerful than what I had with my friends. I decided to slowly show them my interests and let them know my goals and so on. It ended with my goals being mocked and hobbies ignored by most of them, some of them were still genuinely interested and committed to keeping their friendships with me, to what ends I don't know, but I learned to doubt people's intentions after that, maybe most of them were doing exactly what I was doing and I wouldn't know. I had woken up without my mask and they judged me for it while they wore one themselves.

So I went on with my life heartbroken, with the will to live life to the fullest with someone by my side while also not exposing it to anyone. The questions forever remain how to do one while it contradicts the other one?