Confessional: A brief exposition

You look like you have it all together. Ready for work this morning, dressed in a new starched Chef toque, your slacks pressed, hair freshly cut and all scrubbed and polished, you are the picture of competency, poise and professionalism, but the reality is, you are slowly falling apart.

Life has you on the ropes right now and you keep compensating with your carefully selected words, bright smile and impeccable grooming. They always say, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. You know intimately the deep seated truth behind this statement. You learned from a young age at school that even if it isn't good...make it LOOK good. This behavior was reinforced over the years by the schooling and grooming you went through and then later set into stone by your military service. Even here and now, as you try to put into words the helplessness you truly feel, you keep examining the phrases in your mind as you try to write, always keeping in mind the others that will read here and what picture and image that this self confession will leave them with.

You are too scared to simply be, to truly be yourself in an unembarrassed and unabashed way. This hard wired and incredibly rigid self placement and posturing has always been the defense mechanism with which you keep the world at bay. There is no hurt, pain and weakness that must be allowed to show. To truly reveal yourself would open up the walls of your heart and mind to examination by others and in the end, you are terrified of what they might see beneath your constructed surface.

What has hurt you so bad? What type of abandonment and rejection has made your mind into this castle of illusion? Certainly the way that you present to others in this life is made of the building blocks that are a part of you and your identity, but that cool, aloof and happy exterior only serves to keep the people out who truly love you and desperately want to help you. The portion of your life that you allow others to see IS a segment of your reality but it masks the person you know you truly are.

There are secrets hidden in the waters of your soul that you have sworn to take to your grave. There are heavy burdens of shame, guilt and inadequacy that slowly are breaking your emotional spine and as each friendship and relationship grows deeper, you keep opening up a bit, against your own will and those around you are starting to notice the cracks. The truth is, they were never quite taken with the illusions at all, but since you place them in a position of distrust, they have had to content themselves with the small pieces that you allowed them to share. Those nearest you have learned, if they were to probe deeper and ask the questions that you will find the answers to, they are quickly cut off from contact, and as the nomad that you have fashioned yourself to be, you will set sail from their lives, wandering, never to return.

Selfish, by emotional necessity, you have assumed utter and devastating complete control over the things you can master in order to hide the resolute and crushing helplessness that you feel over all things beyond the grasp of your hands, heart and mind. Will you always walk alone in this fashion? Have you never wondered why you are always happy? Why you take such joy at the simplest of things while your world around you may shake and crumble to burning and shattered pieces? You have isolated yourself from your own feelings and become disassociated to such an extent that you no longer allow yourself to feel anything except the few select emotions that you enjoy and are able to control by self manipulation, self medication and complete and total self absorption. You have become a world unto yourself and the distance that you feel from others has been fabricated by your need to never feel the pain and hurt that you have been exposed to, year after year of this life.

When are you going to open up? The way that you have shut others out is the exact same technique you have employed with yourself. You have said it best when you explain that the only two emotions that you have and feel is either happiness or confusion. All the other shades of this amazing human existence have been edited and redacted to the point that your emotions now govern your short and long term memory and you continually and daily shut out your true past and origins in order to make it through one more day with the illusion of care free joy and success. It is a magnificent work of art, I grant you that, but it has left you cut off, alone, hurt and coldly impassionate to the feelings of others. The choices that you make each day in self preservation hurt other people. The empathy that you lack, either by practice or choice does impact those around you, and by shutting yourself off to their pain and confusion, they slip further away from you.

You cannot continue to avoid it all. It has lasted a long time and has been an excellent run. This show has gone on but is reaching the end of its run. The audience is clamoring for a peak behind the scenes. They want to meet the principle actor in this production you call your life, not to expose or hurt you, but to love you and learn the details about the story, the lighting, the costuming, the direction, all of the pieces that make this person work, live and breathe.

You know the truth. The cowering, trembling boy they will meet behind the curtain is NOT whom they expect to find and discover. The boy who plays at shadows cannot be the hero you think they demand. You fear that behind the experience that is your life, they will see who you truly are and walk away in disgust and disappointment, wondering why they were ever taken in by the magic that sprawled across the stage. They will leave you, like all the others have in the past and you will be truly, utterly alone. They will hurt you and heap abuse and pain upon you, leaving you shell shocked in a place that will take years to recover from. The insulation of success, money, material possessions, knowledge and power only suffice to assuage the terror and fear that you live in. You have become director, actor, prop master, costumer, lighting director and engineer of your own show and in doing so, taken a well placed seat in the theater, watching your own life play out and wondering who you truly are. You have bought the ticket and are working both sides of the stage. You live and you watch yourself live. It is the most excruciating insecurity and plea for acceptance I have yet been forced to experience, and somewhere in all of it, the two people you are, the boy behind the curtain on the stage and the man in the audience are becoming one.

I'd like you to meet someone, daemon. He is right over here. He is you. He is Damon. He has been doing the best imitation of yourself for many long years. I think you should get to know each other. He is, after all...you.

Welcome to the start of the rest of your life. This time, why don't we try being present for a change?

daemon/Damon