masked faces.

I have always been fascinated with the art of Chinese opera, and the faces the artists hide behind. Perhaps in another life, I would have existed as a drama nerd, but I save that train of thought for another lifetime. For as long as I can remember, I have always been hyper-aware of the faces I carry, and the spaces I choose to walk into with them. I have always been aware of how curated I’ve learnt to create my environments. Perhaps it stems from a forgotten tendency to paint everything as “fine” because “fine” endures enough to survive.

I will be the first to admit that survivorship has been ingrained within the things I have learnt to carry, and that I have somewhat internalized the desire to do all I can to endure, at the cost of perhaps doing what is right, against the cost of doing what is authentically demanded of me. Perhaps the greatest struggle with the growing discomfort of beginning again, is the understanding that such natural tendencies exist to gravitate towards the spaces that we have always known, not because they are naturally healthy for us, but because it has been everything that we have ever truly known, both good and bad.

I have learnt to wear my masks, and curate its faces, attuned to the spaces and places that I have learned to cultivate. I have learnt how easy it has been to sidestep and put aside feeling at the expense of security and peace, when there has never truly been a reason to step beyond them in such a period of time as this. Like a cat that plays with its dessert after dinner, with no intention of eating it, I find myself perhaps a little, wrestling with my idle thoughts, spinning yarn with a feigned sense of joy and wonder.

Change has been the biggest manifestation for everyone I’ve known in the past year and a half, and it would not be fair to say that this season has not left with it a mark and blemish on what was. My greatest fear was always that I would grow too comfortable after a prolonged period of discomfort, and I find myself in the realization that that truly has become the case. I have been holding this thought to myself privately for the longest time, and perhaps it might be soon, that I allow myself to wander a little further, to remind myself of the why, within the spaces that I have allowed myself to become a little too familiar with. Spaces that I have perhaps worked too long and hard to maintain, but have long past their period of welcome; spaces perhaps that are aligned with the next new thing, and the pieces to come.