masks

I wear a mask every day of my life. I wear the work mask, the good student mask, the good daughter mask, the good friend mask… the list goes on. It’s not that I’m trying to shield myself from the world, I just know that I have yet to fully figure out who I am. The past 6 months have been about discovering who I am and little by little I’ve been able to get rid of certain masks. There are certain times when I’m actually myself, and for those times, I am grateful.

The hardest mask for me is my work mask. I currently have two jobs and don’t really love either of them. But I get up each day and smile and look happy and like I’m enjoying myself, because what else am I supposed to do? If I acted how I really felt, I’d be jobless. I’m hoping that once I graduate and actually find an occupation that I will love it. I know it’s going to be tough and it won’t come easily, but I hope to one day be able to remove my masks more frequently and show people who I am and not who I think they want me to be.

Learning to take off my masks has been very difficult. I am a people pleaser and never want to hurt anyone’s feelings and when I do, I stress about it for days on end. No matter how big or small the issue may have been, the anxiety is overwhelming. Throughout these last few months, I have realized that I’m not going to be able to make everyone like me and I am never going to make everyone happy. If I want at least one person to be happy, then I need to start focusing on myself. And that’s exactly what I’ve chosen to do.