It’s strange how we don’t realize how much of our true selves we’re hiding until we try to stop. I think we all wear masks to some degree. The mask we wear at work, when we have to fulfill a role. The mask we wear in front of our children, when all we want to do is scream at yet another crayon drawing on the wall. The mask we wear around family when we’re afraid of their judgement.
But it’s the masks we wear to hide from ourselves that are the hardest to take off. We build them up in paper thin layers, out of the expectations placed on us by society, until one day we realize the mask is so thick, we can’t even see out of it. So we start peeling it off. Scratching at the surface until chunks fall away. Cracked and broken. Like those expectations we can no longer pretend to fill. And maybe what we find beneath the surface surprises us.
It feels good. But also raw. And when faced with the harsh winds and heat of life outside our own heads, where we have to let other people in, it’s so tempting to let layers of that mask slide into place. Its stifling, and too small, sure. But it’s more comfortable than being exposed.
I don’t want to wear a mask anymore. I want to allow myself to just be. I want to stop trying to squeeze myself into gender roles that I don’t fit for that sake of that little “f” on my license. Fuck that F. It hurts to realize how much of myself I was hiding. But I’ll get past these growing pains. And every time society tries to place a paper thin layer across my sense of self, I’ll use these newfound claws to rip it to shreds, before it can grow into armor again.
I am nonbinary and queer af and I'm not going to hide it anymore.