Expose Yourself (or The Great Unmasking of 2022)

I wore a mask to church today.  I sang at the top of my lungs, recited parts of the church liturgy, and even chatted afterwards with friends from behind it.  I continued to exaggerate and concentrate facial expression with my eyes - dramatically raised brows, overly crinkled eyes, theatrically softened glances, elaborately furrowed frowns – because I’ve learned and adapted and grown accustomed to this masked world I’ve lived in for the past two years; a world forever altered by the covid-19 virus. 

Today, I wore a mask, but tomorrow, I’m putting my mask away.

Heck, I might even wash the beautiful, flower-patterned one that I’ve kept in my pocket or in my purse or over my face for the majority of these last years.  I might begin wearing lipstick when I go out again (okay, I never actually wore lipstick…but I might start!).  I’ll have to learn how to reanimate the lower half of my face when conversing.  It’s time for my teeth, lips, and tongue to take an active, animated part in all the socializing I plan to do tomorrow and the next day and the next.  Because tomorrow, I’m taking it off.  I’m exposing myself.  The mask will be tossed into a pile of covid memorabilia that I’ve amassed over the past two years.

How about you?

Are you ready-set-going to expose that beautiful face of yours?  Shock everyone with the mustache you’ve been secretly growing and grooming?  Awe everyone with those gleaming white teeth?  Impress everyone with smiles, grimaces, clenched or slack jaws?  Or perhaps you’ve taken that mask off long long long ago.

Either way, tomorrow we collectively unmask.  Lay bare.  Expose ourselves.

And it’s time to do the same with our hearts.

What just happened?  And who have I become?

I encourage you to take a good long look at yourself.  I plan to do the same.  Let’s call it “Me Unmasked”.  Because we are skipping or running or limping or crawling out of a pandemic that has forever changed our lives and it’s time to reflect on how we’ve reacted to covid, how we’ve grown, and if this is a healthy place to remain. 

There’s this thing that happens when trauma strikes; trauma can take the form of a pandemic, a war, social isolation, illness, death.  There’s this thing that happens when trauma strikes; trauma erodes the world we know and recognize; it blurs the familiar edges of it even as it readjusts, alters, fashions the world and its people into a new place with brave new people that are rising up out of the ashes and ruins of the old. 

Like it or not, this world has changed.  Like it or not, we have changed.

How have you and I reacted to covid?  Did you get sick?  Did I adhere to policies?  Did you get vaccinated?  Did I wear a mask?  

How have you and I grown?  Are you angry? Am I sad? Have you destroyed relationships? Have I become obsessed with resistance? Are you closer to God?  Is my faith stronger?

Are you and I in a healthy place?  What have I learned ABOUT MYSELF?  How have I grown?  Am I happy with this brave new person?  Is she someone who shows love to others and love to God? 

There are different ways to experience hardship.  We can resist hardship; adjust to hardship; succumb to hardship.  Either way, we grow.  Some of us are emerging stronger, more beautiful, and resilient.  Some of us have become deformed, weaker, uglier, and rigid.

Today, as we collectively unmask, I encourage you to take a good long look at the naked truth. 

What just happened and who have I become?

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bv