be-musings

I've been absent from blogging for what seems like too long, though it is only a few days. Lately I've been feeling like a "bleeding heart" and have tired of expressing myself so openly through this form. I've not known where to go next...what to express. So much has been flying around inside me, but none of it landing. I'll start this return to expression with a post that I've been pondering for some time. I only know the beginning. Where it goes only God knows at this point.
I don't want to be vulnerable. I don't want people to see the real me. It's too risky. I won't be able to take the pain if the real me is rejected. So, I make up alter images. I project. Rarely do I project who I really want to be or who I am. I mummify myself in a cloth of nonchalance, humour, aggressiveness. If you take the time to love me then you have shown patience, perserverance, and intuitiveness. You are welcome to join my life.
This shroud I move in has been an advantage for many years. But it is not always effective in desensitizing me from those around me. At one point in my life I wanted people to care for me and to involve me in their circle. It was hard to break in, as it had been for many before me. And when relationships had begun to form there were comments to me that I wasn't "nice" or sensitive. That should have been okay, because I would have decided they weren't worth pursuing since they couldn't see the real me.
A few years after that experience we moved to another church, and I wore the shroud, though though it was more subdued now, having learned from my previous experience. Within a short time a man from the church told me that he could see what kind of person I was. He could see that the bindings weren't the real me. He thought I was "nice". That was a death sentence in my mind. Nice meant easy to hurt and walk over. I would be caring...be loving...but not nice.He saw through the layers and he was right.
I don't wear so many layers now. More have been removed. And lately parts of the shroud are bare. It hurts, because there is the fear of disappointment, of damage, of loss. I find that in the exposed parts I am many people. A little girl, a passionate woman, a frightened child afraid of being abandoned. Some of these parts have been covered up for a long time and the skin is tender. They are in need of the healing touch of air and sun...love, acceptance, and understanding. The temptation is to cover them up again because it's easier - for the moment. And maybe some days I will. But slowly I hope the bandages will be removed and I will move uninhibited by fear and repression. They make an unflattering covering.
What is your way of coping? What scars and masks do you wear? Will it be forever?
I say no.