At the end of the year WordPress crunches the numbers and tabulates the highlights for one’s blog. When I saw the verdict for my number one blog post by views, I was completely surprised. It’s not my most shared post nor my most commented post. It was a very personal post, but then so was Paris Oooh La La and Always Alright. The post provided a pivotal moment, one when I decided to tuck and run rather than stick around and be seen here. I share my blog posts on my personal Facebook account, I wasn’t prepared for the reaction. I felt exposed and skittish so I started another blog where I ended up sharing more poetry while still writing here and sharing the pieces that are more “appropriate”. I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean other than I feel that sometimes it’s more acceptable to share certain difficult moments such as parenting woes, the endless demands of work versus the life that beckons, the need for more vodka or bourbon or champagne however, revealing the deep well of hurt and pain that remained after a life of 35 years, is too much truth, too much reality. Honestly, I wasn’t in the right place to share that piece yet. In hindsight, it was part of a path for me to finally let go; to own my story, even if it’s not all sparkly unicorns and rainbows. This is my life, for better or worse, my one beautiful messy blessed life. The other blog served its purpose as I needed a safe place with anonymity to let the words go like balloons floating in the sky: up, up and away.

 

I wrote, The Masquerade’s Lie, during my sophomore year in college. I remember it flowing quite effortlessly as I sat in my lilliputian dorm desk, scribbling black ink on white college lined paper. I still have that notebook but most importantly remember closing it and not looking back for a decade. It was an admission to the pain I carried and the anger that resulted from burying it deep. Instead I built a mask, a perpetual smiling visage and pranced around in the masquerade.  But the masquerade’s a lie, it’s not real; armor for the cruel and beautiful world.

 

Tonight while perusing my news feed on Facebook I saw a link in Brené Brown’s profile for the video below. If you click you’ll see the discussion in sign language of the eventual morphing of a “weak knee” sign to one of “turning the mask around” for vulnerability. Weak and vulnerability are not synonymous. 

 

“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.” ~Brené Brown

 

 

The Masquerade’s Lie

 

I stand limelight

In a secret masquerade

My mask’s skin deep

Many years molded its shape

 

My smile widens when others smile back

A joker silently mocking

Those poor credulous souls

 

Pawns in my game

Where I own the board

I make the rules

 

Silently calculating my next move

My eyes radiate icicles

Frozen rage built inside

 

Melting every night

While dancing here

Moving my body

To the rhythm of my lies

I am here in the present

Disconnecting my soul

 

I’ve included my poem again. It’s not a light-hearted poem, however, in exploring my own darkness I’ve been able to find the light, my lux vivens (living light). In owning and sharing our stories, we’re like little twinkle lights on the blogosphere, showing that truly we are not alone as we’re all part of the human experience. The essentials the same, the details different. I’m here, in the present, turning my mask around connecting soul to soul.

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