Masks Off
Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.
Oscar Wilde
This quote by Oscar Wilde has followed me throughout the years and has constantly been a gentle reminder and here’s why:
I used to be the kind of girl that adjusted to my environment. I made myself as small or as big as necessary, conforming to those around me. Forgetting all about authenticity, just to fit in. If the shoe fits right? Well, in my case it didn’t. In my case, I cut off my big toe to make the shoe fit and ended up bleeding and hurting myself. Was it worth it? No. Would I do it again? Hell no. Why did I do it in the first place? Why did I want to be anyone else but me?
Not knowing yourself can make you do things that will make you wonder what the f was wrong with you when you come back to your senses; if you ever come back, that is.
Finding yourself is a never ending journey because we get to know different layers of ourselves as time goes on. Me, at the age I’m at now with a husband and a baby is not the same me I was at the age of 23 when MIA’s song “live fast, die young, bad girls do it well” seemed to be the motto that I was living by (that song is still fire). Whatever life phase you may find yourself in right now at this very moment, is surely bringing out versions and sides of you that you didn’t know or didn’t see when you were 15.
It started at a young age, when the people in my class looked nothing liked me and the only other black girl in my school was a mixed girl who was also just finding herself, seriously the amount of hands I found stuck in her hair were remarkable. And even when I found my black girlfriends, I still wasn’t myself but gave in to what the leader of the group defined me to be. I remember working at Hollister and turning into a (metaphorical) skinny blonde girl, who liked buying Starbucks and saying hey what’s up welcome to the peer, letting my workplace tell me how I could and couldn’t wear my hair: braids were a no-no, just in case you were wondering. I got into my first proper relationship and turned into my boyfriend, I liked what he liked, disliked what he disliked and my whole world revolved around him, oh, to be young and foolishly in love. When things ended, because growth needed to happen apart from each other on both sides, I went on to meet new people, do a full 360 and ended up in the southern part of Africa (if you know you know), becoming a whole different person - yes, I even started learning a new language to fit in - again, if you know you know- (shout out to the girls that stuck by me through it all, my love for you runs deep). Church had become my identity, but I couldn’t have been further away from God. As you can see: at almost every stage of my life I was putting on a show, a semi public one not really being who I am, because I didn’t take the time to get to know me. Instead I invested all of my time into getting to know those around me and being more like them, friends, acquaintances, partners and the list goes on.
Getting to know me, and liking me took forever and it is still an ongoing journey, a much lighter one because I let go of the baggage of trying to be someone else - and let me tell you that alone was a heavy load. I am not saying it is easy, on the contrary: being myself is one of the hardest things I have had to do, because I am very self conscious and was raised to be everything but unapologetic and unbothered. But it is the best thing I could have done for my sanity.
My shoulders feel lighter and my smile is a lot more genuine, I do not apologize for my quirks, my awkwardness, my craziness and I love being my nerdy, laid back, weird, blackity black self.
“There’s beauty in authenticity, don’t let the internet fool you into thinking you’re not enough.”
Everytime I catch myself trying to adjust to the people around me and being less me, I say to myself: Why be somebody else, when being you is the most beautiful thing you can do?
Through quarantine and not being among people as much as I was used to (which wasn’t that much because of my highly introverted, mildly extroverted self) I really got to know myself even more.
On that note: let’s take the masks off, you know the masks that we put on, because we think others will like us more when we put them on. The masks that show a smiling face when in reality our face has everything but a smile on it. It is hard enough that we have to wear masks due to the pandemic, let’s not add to the trouble by wearing internal masks also.
Love,
Maame.