Removing masks

Sometimes it just gets so tiring pretending to be something you're not. You know? My whole life I've been wearing masks of one sort or another. When I was younger it was the shy mask. The one that I put on to make it be ok to be alone with a book all the time. I mean don't get me wrong, I loved reading and still do, but I still wanted to be a part of the group, be able to run around and say crazy things and be accepted for it not actually be looked at like I was crazy.

In high school it was a different mask, though I still haven't identified just what it was. And the past few years it's been the "everything's fine, I'm little miss sunshine" mask. 

Yes there are things that make me happy. Reading, and being around little kids. Little kids. I love them. Because everything in their world is ok. They don't have to be wearing masks, and their emotions are so fleeting and the smallest things can make them so happy. And they love everyone unconditionally. 

But I'm so often cut off from that, and I just don't know what to do. Sometimes, a lot of the time, I just want to run. To leave, to escape everything I've ever known and start over. To be able to leave this place I hate so much, these people who are so fake, and gahhh. 

Yes I want to escape it all. And I have my ways of doing it, but sometimes it just feels like it's never enough. 

But who's left to talk me down? What else is thee that I can stay for? 

I'll let you know when I find it. 

Usually it's obligations. Like this summer like a lot of recent past ones, I do not want to be here. But I made a promise to be here to work no matter how much I hate it, because I never go back on my word. 

I'm rambling.... 

I just needed to write, to get all this nonsense out of my system to calm down. To breathe. To stay.