AUTHENTIC ADULT WOMAN

MASKS...and why we need them!

Masks get a bad rap!  We sometimes confuse them with inauthenticity or deceit.  But in the search for our 'true selves'or our essence, we have to try on a bunch of personas (Latin word for masks). As infants we have to find out if screaming or cooing gets us the most attention. And in our work, we either learn how to schmooze at parties (even if we're introverted)...or be seen as unsociable or worse.

Sometimes we malign our personas or adaptations as 'learned' rather than natural...we might say "I'm not really like that. I was a very shy child. I hid behind my mother's skirts. I hated to be introduced to new people. In boarding school, to cover my shyness, I found an unexpected persona as a humorist.....telling crazy stories, making jokes...always scanning the environment for what was needed to help me feel accepted/OK.  And who knew that my career would require lots of public speaking?  At first that mask felt frightening...but soon I took the mask off and found I could do it naturally. A great old saying (anon, alas) is: WE DISCOVER WHO WE ARE BY DOING WHAT COMES NATURALLY!

But what is the cost of expressing yourself from behaviors that feel like masks or facades?  After awhile you can lose sight of who you are at the core. The way I can tell if I'm wearing my convenient and very well developed masks too much...is the loss of spontaneous energy. Sometimes I need to relax back into my original preferred introversion.   

Nevertheless, I am grateful for the opportunies I've had to aquire and express unexpected parts of myself and integrate them into my wardrobe of options. They make me feel more confident and competent. And less likely to retreat into an introverted hidey hole.  

By now I own that my learned behaviors are genuine parts of me.  Maybe I was always capable of extrovertish behavior but had been socialized early to repress it?  Maybe it only needed necessity, permission and practice to flourish as part of my personality?

                              

Other 'abilities', like putting up with sh*t, tolerating boredom, telling little white lies just to keep the peace...are also part of my bag of tricks.  But they DO NOT REFLECT my current Cronish values.  Even pretending to enjoy soul-deadening gatherings wearing a false mask of pleasure, patience or gratitude...grates on my new nerves.

Here's how my masks, or personas have helped me :)

*they let me audition for parts I couldn't imagine I'd be able to play

*they let me explore shadow parts of my personality that were repressed or previously unacceptable

*they let me play vivid and daring roles outside my comfort zone

AND, IF those masks didn't fit, weren't a genuine part of me, I could toss them

So, I'm glad we all have chances to try on different ways to present ourselves.  We can use those that make us feel more whole and discard those that shrink us. 

BAH - HUMBUG!!

I’m not mean, like Scrooge, and I don’t sit around counting my pennies...but I do notice a tendency to be GRUMPY...maybe it’s an old age thing?

For example:  Christmas seems like too much trouble.  Travel takes too much energy.  Gift wrapping is a waste of paper...and Traditions, in general, seem empty of meaning.  

Am I becoming emotionally lazy?  A curmudgeon?  Is the 'world just too much with us'...draining our energy?

Or am I just less willing to put up with things or people that don’t feed my soul?  I don't know.

 There are antecedents, however.  My mother, Gladys Palmer Anderson, was the original Mrs. Scrooge.  And she had to be...during the depression.  Somehow, through her clever planning, and prayer, and ‘making do’ she made us feel quite rich in ‘what matters’.  But she certainly didn't encourage needless celebrations.

As a child I would beg Mrs. Scrooge to let us have a Christmas tree.  She was tired I think...and her message was, essentially, “why go to all that bother?”. 

Yet, reluctantly, she’d haul out the old decorations from the attic...the faded red paper half-bell which opened out into a full round bell we hung from the chandelier in the middle of the living room...and ropes of green interlocking crepe paper loops strung from the bell across to the four corners of the room.  And boxes of thin flat strips of silver “icicles” to hang from every branch of the glowing tree.  

And I’d go out into the crisp blue night air and skate under the northern lights....skimming the ice in wide swaths - long glides - almost ecstatic with solitary joy.

These days I seem to have internalized mother’s careful spending of ‘energy'.  I find myself resistant to festivities, carnivals, circuses, big concerts, and MAGIC in general.

So I am always surprised when, in spite of all that conditioning, I spontaneously fall under the spell of holiday happiness...when the twinkly lights and the roaring hearth and the savory smells and the laughter of friends and family fill the air with warmth.

                        I love the magic of a whole town lit up in celebration of the season.