Anatomy

Anatomy of Masks

If you asked the people around me who I was, they'd probably say the usual things: I was the girl who laughed a little too loudly, who wore a quick smile and tossed her hair as if to shake off anything that might slow her down. I had a reputation for being bright, maybe even funny on a good day, but that's all anyone ever really saw—a person sculpted from the outside in, carved by the expectations and ideas of everyone but me. 

They'd say I was kind, a good listener, someone you could lean on.

But the truth?

The truth was that I didn't know who I was without the mask, and honestly, I wasn't sure I wanted to find out.

Wearing a mask makes it easier to pass through life unnoticed, especially when you're carrying things you'd rather keep hidden.

It's like walking through a dark room with your eyes shut tight, hoping that if you can't see anyone else, maybe they won't see you either. And so, overtime, I became a master at it. At school, with friends, even with my own family, I'd slip into the character they needed me to be. The more I wore it, the easier it became to ignore the girl underneath, the one who felt like she was crumbling beneath the weight of all she carried.

But behind that mask was something darker, something that didn't smile or laugh or feel safe in this world. 

She was tired. 

She was lost.

And she was angry, angry at herself for pretending, angry at others for not noticing. No one saw the fear etched into her every movement, the way she bit her lip to keep from crying, the way she forced herself to smile when all she wanted to do was scream. And in the silence of my own mind, I told myself I was just being dramatic, that everyone felt this way sometimes and that it would pass.

It didn't. 

Instead, the feeling festered like a wound left untreated, something hidden beneath layers and layers of gauze and plaster, pretending to heal when all it was really doing was rotting away. I wanted to tear it off, to rip through each layer and expose whatever lay beneath, raw and unfiltered. 

But I was afraid. Afraid that what I'd find underneath would be worse than the mask I'd spent so long perfecting.

That's why I started writing this. I needed a way to peel back those layers, slowly, like an anatomy lesson in reverse.

One by one, I wanted to see each piece of myself, to understand the girl hiding beneath the surface and maybe, finally, to make sense of her. I wanted to see the shadows, the bruises, the scars that no one else could touch, that no one else even knew existed.

Writing this was my attempt to dissect the parts of myself I'd kept locked away, the pieces that refused to stay silent no matter how hard I tried to bury them. 

It's strange, really, how we can wear masks so convincingly that even we start to believe in them. 

But the girl behind mine was still there, holding her breath, waiting for someone to notice. Maybe part of me hoped that if I wrote everything down, someone would finally see her, that they'd recognize the signs I tried so hard to conceal. Maybe, in some way, this was my way of begging for help without ever saying the words out loud.

But writing this doesn't feel like relief; it feels like bleeding, like each word is a drop pulled from some wound that never quite healed. I write because I don't know any other way to unravel myself, to peel back the mask layer by layer and confront the girl who has been screaming inside me all along. 

Maybe, by the end of this, I'll finally know who I am without it. 

Or maybe I'll find there's nothing left at all.