In Costume

Last night, I dressed in costume for the 2^nd time in my life.

Yes, it’s weird that I have only done this twice but I’m starting to like it.

The dress I wore in my sisters wedding just 3 weeks ago lived again when I added a cape and transformed into a goth temptress of the macabre.

In little more than an hour, I became someone far removed from the real me. It was fun and it gave me license to try on another identity. When I arrived at the party and people who knew me didn’t recognize me, I felt a sense of accomplishment.

Of course it was all in good fun but while I was painting my fingernails in black, I was reminded of all the masks we wear in life.

We hide behind laughter and we hide behind silence. We hide in maturity and in immaturity. We hide in arrogance and sarcasm and sugary sweetness and all manner of things that we are good at.

The things that are a part of us, that make us who we are, become diminished when we use them as a layer of self-protection. There’s always something to hide behind that will conceal our true self.

Why so much hiding??

If I feel weak or inadequate or that someone may reject me, I might go silent. That way, if those things prove true, if someone does reject me, then I know it’s not the real me they rejected. It was the mime costume they didn’t like.

In the moments that we find ourselves hiding in self-protection, may we remember that being true to who we are, is far more beautiful than any costume we might create.