218. The Deepest Self

Everything she shows others is carefully managed. She does not allow them to see any part of her that might lower her in their eyes. Problems and blemishes are kept hidden, tucked out of sight or covered up. She is an expert at hiding and covering, for she has been doing this her whole life.

She knows what people will accept from her. She knows what attracts them and what repulses them. Her surface is all happiness and cheer and fun, precisely because she knows this is what others most want from her.

Her deepest self is not like this at all. It’s filled with feelings she cannot explain, feelings that push her to do things she doesn’t understand. She keeps this self hidden at all times, for it scares her to imagine what people would think if they knew who she really was. There’s too much darkness there, too much pain, and no one likes that, no one wants to see it, and no one seeks it out. It’s better to keep it buried, deep inside her where it can cause her reputation no harm.

The others rarely show these parts of themselves too, and in truth, she’s not certain she could handle it if they were to give her more. She connects with them on the surface, their surfaces being similar to her own, carefully polished and poised.

Or at least, she thinks she connects with them. This is what most scares her. If so much of her is hidden, and so much of them is hidden, then what is really being connected? Who are the entities that are connecting? Are they real people, and is one of them her?

When she thinks about this for too long, her loneliness grows and she feels the darkness inside her expand. It seems inescapably true that there’s a significant part of the real person she is that is not connected to anything or anyone. And therefore, she is alone in the world.

To overcome this would mean showing herself — her real self — to others, but is this something she is able to do? To be vulnerable seems too much to ask of a person in a world as harsh and unforgiving as this one.