CRUMBLING FACADES

I met with an old friend this week. We’ve been on parallel paths for 20 years. His being more visibly “successful”. I mean that’s how it looked anyway. Just beneath the surface was a crumbling facade.  I wasn’t surprised. We are all an outer layer to what lies beneath and a lot of the time that’s not what it seems. 

This isn’t an indictment on him at all,  as the reality is, I recognized it as my own. The hard shiny enamels of our lives on display in a perfect smile, while the teeth rot from within. Not from lack of brushing. From trying to keep the balls in the air and portraying what we think the world wants to see. Success, rock star sheen, the things we have convinced ourselves to be. 

Pretty rough for a Friday morning?  What with the weekend upon us and all. I’d sometimes argue it’s not rough enough. We need to let the outside crack and fall away, because it ultimately frees us to become. Think of how much work it takes to be what we think we should be. We adopt a path and we force ourselves to color within the lines while the crayons yearn for the opposite. The freedom comes when we grab burnt sienna in a fist and scribble back and forth. Across all the lines. In any direction. 

No this isn’t an invite to embrace irresponsibility. It’s an invite to center ourselves and cast away the things we know cost us joy in the service of a what we’ve convinced ourselves the world wants from us. Jesus. I sound like an evangelist. Maybe it’s because I see so many people trapped in what they thought they should become. Like a costume they put on in 1997, and now 23 years later they’ve finally started to hate the smell on the inside of the mask. 

The friend mentioned above is on a new track. An entirely terrifying one in a lot of ways. But terror has always yielded giddiness in me. A tingle in the chest that makes you feel alive. What I know is that not only will he be okay. He’ll be better. I could see it immediately. He’s scared but happy the stucco facade has crumbled to reveal beautiful brick underneath. It’s the stuff he’s made of. 

He just needed a reminder that it was there. 

We all do. 

#hugsandhi5s