Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Locks, barriers, doors, everyone has them. The question is: what are we hiding? Is it worth going through the effort to find out? What we hide is emotional, physical, chronological, personal and much more.To prevent people from finding our secrets and opening our emotional locks, we have to hide them. How do we hide our locks from everyone? We wear masks.

We create an image of ourselves, one that others will accept. Day in and day out we dance around and hide behind these images, or "shells." Everyone knows of these shells on some level, subconciously or otherwise. Things we feel we cannot show, things we want to say or do that we hold back on, they are protected by our shells. So what do we do when someone finds a piece of us on the floor after it has been chipped off? We break down.

A girl is walking down the hall at school with her friends, and a boy calls her off to the side. "I heard about what happened to your mother," the boy says. Her eyes open wide, confusion, pain, anger, and sorrow overwhelm.

Too much for our brains to handle, we collapse. Walking in our perfect sunny world, we are suddenly struck by lightning. The walls grow farther apart until you can't see them anymore. The laughter and talking of those around you are drowned out by thunder. You look up to see that your perfect sun has been covered up by black clouds. Everyone and everything around you has disapeared.

"Hey, I heard about what happened to your mother," the boy says again. The girl looks at him, her eyes swelling with moisture, ready to burst. "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for what happened," the boy continues. The girl thanks him for his sympathy as he walks away. Her eyes quickly dry up and she wipes off her face. She quickly picks the chip up off the floor and puts it in her pocket, it can never be put back.

She quickly recomposes herself, putting her mask back on. The door has been opened now, the lock broken. Now anyone can walk inside, they just have to see through the mask. A cloud moves in, rain falls, thunder strikes and sunshine breaks through the clouds. She regains feeling almost instantly, remembering that she has to "perform" for society. When did we grow such a thick skin?

She cries out of sorrow and joy as every drop of rain turns to crystal in the sun. She covers the pain, her emotions mixed for a couple of minutes before she realizes where she is. She stands upright and walks through the masses, her smile stiff as if a puppeteer were holding it up with strings.

She will not soon forget that boy, she will remember that moment everytime she walks by him. She stops to talk to him in the hall one day afterwards. They're good friends now, but he always remembers how he made her become alive for one brief moment as the chip peeks out of the girl's pocket at him. The spot where the chip fell from is already filled. She has covered up her scar with joyous laughter. Everytime she sees his face she laughs out loud.

So let's start a war, let's make it rain. Catch people off gaurd and make them expose who they really are inside. As we open up the doors, it will start to rain down. Follow me and I can show you a little side of everyone, I can make them come out of their shells. With practice, you too can get to know people for who they really are. Just remember that everyone has something painfull and dark hidden inside of them.