The Masks We Wear

I’m reading a really good book right now called Behind Those Eyes by author Lisa Whittle. You can find her blog here.

The book is supposed to address “what’s really happening in the souls of women” and let me tell you, it’s a doozy. From Ms. Perfection to Ms. Happiness to the most challenging of all, Ms. Spirituality, it takes the first chapter, The Truth Hurts to really lay it out for you.

We as women, hide behind so many different masks. We have learned from society, church, and definitely the military to put on our masks to cover an inner pain but even more so our inner beauty.

Page after page rang true for me. I saw myself written in her words, and stopped to wonder how she had gotten it so right, so on target, right in the inner depth of the struggle that every woman goes through on a daily, hourly, even minute by minute basis.

Do I cover up my feelings to avoid being hurt? Do I cover up what I really think to fit in with the crowd? Do I cover up the tears with a mask covered in the finest makeup, the makeup that thinly veils what I’m really feeling?

I know that when my husband was deployed I didn’t want to feel the hurt and the pain of being alone. I learned to use my masks with the best of the best of them. I could cover up the heartache of deployment with my most matter of fact explanation. “Yes, my husbands deployed, To Iraq, he left when our son was 10 days old, he should be back around his first birthday” Nonchalant conversations that pierced my soul nonetheless.

As you walk through another day dealing with this life of deployment, of being a military mommy, I encourage you to take off your mask for a moment. Experience the pain, the healing, and the raw vulnerability of really getting real.

Tomorrow, from the book, The Truth Heals. But for today, what mask have you been wearing lately?
Always,
Jesi