The Mask

I love it when I read or hear something that embodies exactly how I'm feeling.

It's like I bond with the thought, the quote, the song lyrics, whatever it is. This time, it went like this:

"I finally took off my mask...

and i love who I'm becoming."

found on: postsecret

When I left my mission, my goal was to heal.

Heal everything that has left me broken over the years.

I worked with a psychologist from LDS family services while I was still in Houston, to see if issues could be worked through while I was still in the mission field.

When the decision was finally made for me to come back home, there were various freak outs that occurred inside my head. On this one particular day, just a day or two before I left, I really started panicking about the implications of the whole situation and what everyone was going to think, how and if I was seriously going to go through with it, blahblahblah...

So I called my psychologist.

To help me NOT freak out. She's good at that.

I told her everything that I was worried about... I'm sure in incoherent ramblings with plenty of tangents and possibly including tears. Thankfully, once I was done, or had at least momentarily paused for a breath, her words of wisdom began to spill forth.

Among those words of wisdom, was a phrase very similar to that quote.

She said, "My understanding of why you were going home, was because you needed to take time to heal, to stop putting on the fake happy face... to take down the mask, and just be who you really are."

Those words were exactly what I needed to hear in that moment.

I agreed with her. Somehow she knew much better than me how to say it so that it made sense, and ever since then, I have remembered that phrase. And then I read it on postsecret, and I decided that that is going to be my motto. My theme. My anthem of healing from now until I am better. I am going to take down the mask.

So, here I am. Austin. I'm twenty-two (almost twenty-three!) years old. A BYU graduate with a degree in elementary education. A returned missionary that only served half of the eighteen months that are typically anticipated. And from here on out, I'm not going to try to be anything that I'm not.

Now. In the spirit of "taking down the mask", I'm going to share a little bit of the real me with all of you. The me that many of you probably aren't familiar with. The me that is likely to surprise anyone who's known me for most of my life. And I'm excited to do it.

1. I am, more or less, a liberal, democratic thinker. I love the group of liberal kids I hang out with. We're a bunch of yoga doing, concert-going, farmer's market shopping, gardening, recycling, vegetarians. One of my favorite things in the world is walking through Seattle and seeing all the free-thinking artists. Especially at Pike Place market. The dreadlocks, the coffee shops, the street corner music, the art and murals and public transportation everywhere... I drink every drop of it up every time I go. Cannot get enough of it.

2.I really love art. Not necessarily art museums, or formal art settings... rather the art of life, I guess. Those beautiful little moments each day that remind you to be happy. Like when you wake up and the sun is coming through the curtains just right and you know that you don't have to be out of bed any time soon. Or when you're playing with a bunch of little kids and they can't help but show you every amazing leaf and twig and piece of dirt that they find, and they look up at you with their admiring, trusting eyes, and they feel so safe because you're bigger than them and according to them, you know everything. Or when you're up late talking with a friend, and you say just the right thing at just the right moment and everything just comes together and makes sense, and you wish that it could stay like that forever. I adore the beautiful, artful, moments of life. Which is one of the reasons I love reading any post from nienie, or c jane. But particularly, this post.

3. I think pregnancy, and motherhood is beautiful. All of it! I loved reading and learning about these god-given capabilities when I was younger, but as I grew I became embarrassed to talk about it. ...I'm not going to be any longer. I can't wait to someday be pregnant and have kids of my own. I know I don't know anything about being a mother, and I know that it's going to be a zillion times harder than what I know, but it's still going to be awesome. Our bodies are SO amazing!

4. Sometimes I have bad days. I know that everyone does... but how many of us are willing to open up and talk about them? And how many of us are willing to listen when someone opens up to us? I don't know why it's difficult for me to admit that everything isn't perfect. Everytime I run into an old friend in a random place, my first instinct is to pretend that my life is going swimmingly and completely as planned, etc. etc. But it's not, and probably never has. And even if it did, that doesn't mean that I liked it. Or do like it.

5. I don't know everything. Shocker right? Seriously though, sometimes when people ask me a question, I feel like I have to come up with an answer whether I actually know the answer or not. I'm trying to break that habit. Maybe it comes from being the oldest?

I'm sure there is more of this forthcoming.

Meanwhile, I'm just going to work on implementing this in my real life.

Wish me luck! :)