By Elizabeth Syson | Echo
Three days before classes began, I squinched my eyes shut while a guy from my dorm ran the cold teeth of hair clippers over my head. All I could say after that first pass was, "What if I have an ugly head?"
As my hair fell in chunks to the floor, I realized I had no backup plan. If you get a bad haircut, you can alter it. When you shave your head, there's nothing left to alter.
There's also nothing left to hide behind. Nothing to cover my head if it turned out to be a weird shape; nothing to hide my ears-not my favorite feature-nothing to style just so in order to hide that acne on my jaw.
I didn't realize how much I hide behind my hair until I swept it up off the bathroom floor, avoiding glancing at my reflection as I did.
Uncomfortable with the shorn stranger in the mirror, I immediately found something else to hide behind. I might have bid my hair adieu, but I still had that essential magic-makeup. For five straight days, I wore more makeup than I had in the past five straight months. I spared no effort in creating a new mask to hide behind.
But even with makeup, I did a double-take every time I happened to see my face in a mirror or window; I didn't know my face without its usual context. I felt naked, vulnerable, all my features on unavoidable display for the world to see.
As my hair grows back, I'm beginning to realize there's always something to hide behind, and my hair is a mild example. It's not such a problem to be uncomfortable with my face without hair, but what happens when I'm uncomfortable with myself?
We hide our real selves behind sarcastic jokes, #nofilter Instagrams and witty Tweets. We keep our flaws, wounds and doubts tucked away behind a façade of smiles and successes-a mask so effective that in vulnerable moments, when everything we hide behind is stripped away, we hardly recognize ourselves.
So we paint smiling lipstick over our questioning mouths and hide our tears with shimmering eye shadow, rushing to construct something-anything-to hide behind.
What would happen if we allowed ourselves to be real? If we found the things we hide behind-those catchphrases we toss around so glibly or the busy schedules we lean on like a crutch to keep us from being alone with our reality-and set them aside? What if we took a good long look at the genuine selves we keep locked away and then chose to love ourselves despite the ugly features and healing scars?
We might find that the things we hide behind lose their power. We might create a safe place for others to come out from hiding as we release hypocrisy and comparisons and see that we all have flaws, pains and problems.
We might learn to love people, not just masks.
