"There's a face that we wear in the cold light of day, it's society's mask, it's society's way--and the truth is that it's all a facade." --Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical
Yesterday was not the best of days for me. The reasons why hardly matter; suffice it to say that the migraine caused by the ophthalmologist dilating my one good eye lasted all day and did nothing to improve my mood. (Neither, may it be noted, did the Reader's Digest jokes my mom read me as I sat in the waiting room. But it's been a longstanding tradition that any time she's at a doctor's office with me, she has to find the RD and commence reading any joke she finds funny.)
However, when I got home, I realized that sometimes--sometimes--I can be quite the actress. (Let's be honest: this doesn't happen often, since I have a hard time disguising my feelings.) Before I opened the door, I plastered a smile on my face. Took a deep breath. And prepared myself to be chipper.
During dinner, I chatted away. Somehow the conversation turned to our high school friends and how all of our individual groups of friends had predicted who would get married off first. And I mentioned how my friends thought I'd bite the bullet long before the rest of them, purely because I didn't date much in high school and they thought I'd marry the first man who cropped up in my life. (Let's just say: my goodness, I'm glad that didn't happen)
But after dinner, when I retired to my room, I found myself sinking into that dark funk again. I can't hard my moods from myself, it would seem.
And as I did a number of things and I thought about it last night, I wondered why I think I need to hide such emotions from my roommates. Why I tend to overflow with good feelings, but I tend not to share the bad ones with the people who are right there and could help.
Is it a matter of pride? Do I not want to cause them to share my troubles? Do I think they'll misinterpret somehow? That they won't understand? That they'll tell me I'm being ridiculous?
I think it's probably a matter of that question. When I know I'm feeling low, and I think my reasons are ridiculous, I don't want to have anyone else pointing out the silliness going on there. Because I want to find my own way to talk myself out of the silliness.
3 comments:
Hm... Yeah, it's hard to share stuff like that.
I dunno. Maybe it's just 'cuz I'm a guy who lives with other guys, but I generally find my roommates to be absolutely worthless when I try to share stuff with them. But sometimes it's just nice to talk stuff out, even if the listening party has nothing to offer.
On the other hand, facades are kind of a nice escape for as long as they last (which, I'll agree with you, is generally only as long as other people are in the room).
Good luck! I'm sure you'll do great at talking yourself out of silliness. Though every once and awhile it's okay to be silly. People should understand, and if they don't they're not thinking very proactively. Mostly just retroactively. Like rockets. Yeah.
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