“Honestly, have you ever seen her get mad?”
In my head, I’ve been true to myself. In my head, I smiled only when I meant it. In my head, I saw no reason why I wouldn’t be able to show you the path leading to the real me, and that the view to my little glass house was HD.
But while the mind fools us by showing us only what we want to see, the eyes wink and say, “Oh well, I still have a clearer view.” But then again, those eyes — they usually don’t belong to you. It’s someone else’s view.
And for some reason, they can’t see your Charlie Brown shoulders; that the struggle to keep your back straight and your head up is millennial-real; that you’re tricking your eyes to stop looking into the distance because you know you’ll drift away to a place where only you, your heart and your thoughts know how far you can go and never return.
And when you hyperbole every word that comes out of your mouth, they can’t tell that you’d actually rather be lying on your mat or in bed with your mouth shut and your eyes closed, because they’re better at carrying your weight, that load that gets heavier by the day.
Tangled up in your sheets, listening to moving tunes and lyrics by some people you’ve never met, and probably never will, because somehow their music speaks to you and finally there’s somebody who understands your human sorrows and needs.
That smile on your face; that constant need to prove to everyone (who relies on you for their sanity) that you’ve got everything under control; that put-on energy that every morning you might enhance with a little dose of caffeine; that social media post screaming “happiness” from every angle you look — others could fall for it, but behind closed doors there’s no else you can fool.
So when you say to me, “You look so happy I would’ve never guessed your misery,” it proves two things: how remarkably (wonderfully) oblivious people can be or /and what a great job I do at keeping it all bottled in.
