"Please Hear What I'm Not Saying"

Don't be fooled by me.  Don't be fooled by the face I wear.  For I wear a thousands masks, masks that I'm afraid to take off and none of them is me. Pretending is an art that is second nature with me, but don't be fooled.   For God's sake don't be fooled. I give you the impression that I'm secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without, that confidence is my name and coolness my game; that the water's calm and I'm in command, and that I need no one. But don't believe me. My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask, ever-varying and ever-concealing.  Beneath lies no complacence. Beneath lies confusion and fear and aloneness. But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.

I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear of being exposed.  That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, a nonchalant sophisticated facade to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows. But such a glance is precisely my salvation.  My only hope and I know it.  That is, if it's followed by acceptance, if it's followed by love.  It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself, from my own self- built prison walls, from the barriers I so painstakingly erect. It's the only thing that will assure me of what I can't assure myself; that I am worth something. But I don't tell you this.  I don't dare.  I'm afraid to.  I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance, will not be followed by love.  I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.  I'm afraid that deep down I'm nothing, that I'm just no good, and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game, with a facade of assurance without and a trembling child within.  So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks, and my life becomes a front.  I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.  I tell you everything that's really nothing, and nothing of what's everything, of what's crying within me.  So when I'm going through my routine, do not be fooled by what I'm saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying, and what I'd like to be able to say, what for survival I need to say, but what I can't say.

I don't like to hide. I don't like to play superficial phony games. I want to stop playing them. I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me, but you've got to help me.  You've got to hold out your hand even when that's the last thing I seem to want.  Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of the breathing dead.  Only you can call me into aliveness.  Each time you're kind and gently and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings, very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings!  With your power to touch me into feeling you can breathe life into me.  I want you to know that.

I want you to know how important you are to me, how you can be a creator, a honest-to-God creator of the person that is me, if you choose to.  You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble, you alone can remove my mask, you can alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic and uncertainty, from my lonely prison, if you choose to.  Please choose to.  Do not pass me by.  It will not be easy for you.

A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.  The nearer you approach to me, the blinder I may strike back.  It's irrational.  I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.  But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls, and in this lies my hope.  Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands, but with gentle hands, for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?  I am someone you know very well.  For I am every man you meet and I am every woman you meet.

~ Charles C. Finn ~

"Being Who You Are"

How many games do we play
When we don’t know who to be
And how many masks do we wear
When we are blinded and cannot see?

Just be myself and who I am
Or so the mentors say
Stand straight and tall to face the world
In the rising of each new day.

Will my weaknesses show, will they all see
The insecurities I hide behind
Will my fears be known; my flaws exposed
With the doubts that lurk in my mind?

Or do I take that giant leap
To prove my worthiness
By presenting the me I carry inside
With humbling grace and modest finesse?

Please accept me just the way I am
Someone no better nor less than you
And together we can remove our masks
As we start our lives anew.

~ Luvs ~
© Copyright 2001

"Life and Inspiration Index"

"Do I Make You Proud"

"Dream While We May"

If you have the time, stop by my home on the web,
have a cup of coffee, and see a list of my other web pages.
Thanks!
~ Jan ~

    

 

"Just The Way You Are"
by Billy Joel

Don't go changing to try and please me
You never let me down before
And don't imagine you're too familiar
And I don't see you anymore.

I would not leave you in times of trouble
We never could have come this far
I took the good times, I'll take the bad times
I take you just the way you are.

Don't go trying, some new fashion
Don't change the color of your hair
You always have my unspoken passion
Although I might not seem to care.

I don't want clever conversation
Never want to work that hard
I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are.

I need to know that you will always be
The same old someone that I knew
Ah, what will it take till you believe in me
The way that I believe in you.

I said I love you and that's forever
And this I promise from the heart
I could not love you any better
I love you just the way you are.

I don't want clever conversation
I never want to work that hard
I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are. 

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