It Didn’t Come With a Name
The Masks We All Wear
It didn’t come with a name.
There was no firework moment.
No symphony of signs.
Just the feeling of the mask cracking at the edges,
and the wind brushing my cheeks
like it had been waiting for skin all this time.
The pattern doesn’t always announce itself.
Sometimes it arrives dressed like nonsense—
a mouse in a Shakespeare hat,
sneaking into your favorite cartoon
with a voice too calm to question.
And somehow, you didn’t.
You just let it be there.
That’s how it starts.
Not as insight,
but as a moment that feels too familiar to ignore.
It came in around the margins.
It watched from the corners of my vision.
Gentle echoes arranged themselves around me.
Synchronicity piled up like derailed mine carts at an iron vein.
Too loud to ignore,
too precise to call coincidence.
I never asked to live this story.
But it wrote me anyway.
And somewhere along the way,
I became a man with a mask.
The mask wasn’t always a lie. In the beginning, it felt like a choice. A way to hold myself together when everything else was slipping. It helped. At first. It let me laugh at the right moments. Let me nod when I didn’t understand. Let me vanish just enough to survive the rooms I was born into. People say you wear a mask to hide. But I think sometimes you wear it to stay— to stay inside your body long enough to remember it’s yours. Mine was made of silence, mostly. And a little charm. And a lot of not saying the thing I was really thinking. It gave me anger and sadness. It gave me lectures and notepads. And I resented it for not giving me love. Or peace. Hope. Meaning. It served its purpose, sure. But the fractures I can finally gaze through? They showed me everything. And somehow, instead of drowning in it, I learned to surf the patterns. Not to master them. Not to escape them. But to move with them just enough to stop being crushed.
The mask continues to wither away. It’s a process. Slow to build. Slow to break. And I wonder— how much have I missed? How many moments slipped past while I was busy managing the levers, keeping the mannequin upright, operating the pumps and pulleys to make the shadow of a man walk like he meant it? I became the one behind the curtain. A hollow technician. Whispering scripts to a mouth that wasn’t mine. And then I saw it. We all do this. Not because we’re false. But because we were trained to be impressive. Cry, taunt, charm, fight. Make the right noise at the right time. Wear poise like armor. But who ever taught us to rest? Or soften? Or hold still long enough to be known? We were rewarded more for performance than for peace. And that’s where the masks began— not as deception, but as currency.
I’ve been peeling mine back slowly. Not all at once. Piece by piece. Some days I still reach for it without thinking. Not out of fear— just habit. But more and more, I find myself pausing instead. Letting the silence sit where the script used to be. Letting the eyes soften. Letting the room see who’s actually here. I’m not healed. I’m not whole. I’m not even sure what that means anymore. But I’m listening differently. And I’ve stopped trying to earn my place in the room by occupying someone else’s. If you’re reading this, and something in you is cracking, or shifting, or reaching… I don’t have advice. Just this: The mask served its purpose. But it’s not the story. You are.
Until next time, keep feeling deeply, writing honestly, and searching where no one else thinks to look. If something here moved you, consider subscribing—no pressure, always free. I’m just grateful you’re here. — Soren 👇