Finally cured of my suffering through insouciance, I was able to fake being normal again. I dusted off my masks and put them on one by one, moving through life with carefully constructed personas. It was easier now, and even those closest to me believed my facade as they always did. No one sensed that underneath, I hated them all in varying degrees. At best, I regarded them with mild amusement; their petty problems, their vapid smiles and boorish opinions. It felt better to just give up on them than it did to care about a single one.
I started interacting with friends again, playing games and having conversations, pretending to care about their thoughts and feelings. I was so good at pretending that sometimes I almost believed it myself. On such occasions, I would withdraw and fine-tune myself. My walls were still broken, my defenses destroyed. It allowed the emotions of others to invade; instead of blocking them out, I had taken the tactic of just swatting them away. It was no longer a stronghold where I would hide away, letting down the drawbridge here and there. It was now an open battlefield where anything that came to me was brutally beaten into oblivion. Let their emotions in, I decided, Let it all in, and let them die here. I mocked them in my mind while consoling them on the surface. I was laughing at them and they never knew.
But in allowing this, I forgot the cardinal rule of life, the one I had heard and etched in every molecule of my being: In the end, we all are who we are, no matter how much we may appear to have changed (Joss Whedon).
Despite my best efforts, I couldn't deny my true nature. I couldn't kill off my humanity completely. I couldn't fight it all off, couldn't mock it all away. Some things - some people - started to slip through the cracks. I was uneasy. I didn't want to go through it all again. But I had no choice. Where before I only felt their judgement and pity, their sorrow and pain, I now felt their affection and admiration. I felt their friendship, their honest concern. It disarmed me. I don't know if you've tried, but it's hard to completely hate people who show such loyalty and love. But believe me, I tried.
After a couple of days that felt like years, the darkness began to break. Behind it, a light poured through. I could be normal again - or as normal as I ever was. I could start over, but this time I would do it better. I would be smarter about it.
But my new self wasn't going to give up without a fight.
No comments:
Post a Comment