Masks That I Wear by Bonnie

by Bonnie Ramsburg

I’d have to say that I started wearing masks in elementary school. That’s were I first learned to hide my feelings. Simply so the bullies didn’t know how much it really bothered me when they called me names, or picked on me for some other reason.

Watching “Bambi” during the ‘formative’ years resulted in the mask of silence. Little Thumper said it, and he was one of my favorites, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” I’m abrupt and brusque in my speaking when I’m upset. I know this about myself, so if you have done or said something that I think is stupid or shouldn’t have been said or done, and it requires my to answer to be polite or subtle, more than likely, I won’t speak at all. It keeps the peace and keeps me out of trouble for telling you just how dumb whatever was.

Having Bi-Polar hasn’t helped any with wearing masks either. The highs are high, the lows are low, and when I’m extremely low, it’s the worst. I’m either more easily angered or experiencing bouts of sadness, to the extent that if some one asks me what’s wrong, that’s when I use the mask of, “I’m just tired.” Because there isn’t anything really wrong, even though I may feel like crying; but nothing’s right either. And really, nobody understands what you feel or what you try to say unless they’ve been there themselves.

Then there are the masks I wear at work. I work retail and have done so since I was eighteen years old, and I’ve been in my present job for sixteen and a half years. Due to different situations, I’ve been car-less more than I’ve had a car during this time. My transportation has usually been my family. When they would pick me up from work, the first question out of their mouth would be, “Why do you look so angry?” My answer has always varied. But the truth of the matter is, my funny, cheerful and nice side gets used up in dealing with the public on a daily basis. I hardly have any thing left over for myself, let alone my family (thankfully, there are no kids in the house).

My family sees the masks of anger, short temperedness, unpleasantness, meanness and the attitude. My customers see the masks of happiness, the patience of Job, pleasantness, silliness and fun loving. They don’t believe me when I tell them that I’m not always that way. Even my co-workers don’t believe me, until they see it of course.

Then I’m “mean and not nice,” but they’ve usually pushed my buttons to that point; and if I’ve been telling them the truth about it for a while, how come they’re all of a sudden surprised by my actions?

I continue to wear the masks of daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece and friend. Even these masks aren’t completely see-through.

And they never will be. That’s just how it is when you’ve worn a mask for so long. It becomes such a part of you, you don’t even recognize yourself if you ever remove it.