On March 23, 2020, Jeff and I armed ourselves with double latex medical gloves, shielded our faces with KN95 masks, and guarded our bodies with thick sweats and hooded sweatshirts. We headed to the battlefield (formerly known as the grocery store) to feed our family and find toilet paper.
As dramatic as this sounds, it really seemed that intense at the time. I remember walking into the store feeling so silly from our appearance until I realized that everyone else had the same idea—some even more creative than ours. If I had walked into that same store dressed that way just one week earlier, I would have been judged intensely and maybe even deemed mentally ill. Even with everyone in compliance, it still felt awkward, out of place, and unnatural to wear a mask indoors when I was not cleaning or visiting a hospital. I remember three months later catching myself judging one person’s decision to not wear a mask in that same grocery store because it had become so normal and expected.
It was crazy to me how quickly we conformed. For two years, we adapted to, conformed, and complied with the mandates that were put into place. What was once odd, awkward, and often despised became normalized, accepted, and even desired. Two years later, the mask mandates are now being slowly lifted in the vast majority of public places, allowing the use of masks to be by personal preference and no longer a requirement.
Our family recently attended an indoor teen birthday event, and I found it interesting that, even though the restrictions had been lifted, every single one of the teens in the room chose to wear their masks for the entire event. I watched closely as the adolescents slid their straws through the bottoms of their masks to drink their sodas and pushed their fries through the sides to enjoy their snacks, all without detaching their masks. Through the games, dancing, laughing, and group huddles of conversations, they never once removed or even adjusted the masks on their faces. For a brief moment, I commended their discipline until it dawned on me that these are teenagers, and teenagers love to rebel and be free. So, why would they be so strict about following rules that restrict them when they no longer have to? I leaned into my daughter and asked her why certain people chose not to remove their masks, and she shared with me that each person had insecurities and that hiding behind the mask actually made it more fun, since people tend to be less self-conscious around one another.
For decades, adults and teens alike have found ways to hide behind metaphoric masks to conceal insecurities and uncomfortable moments. Covid-19 provided literal masks to add to that concealment, making it even more difficult to get to know people around us and much easier to disguise who we really are. The masks over our faces may be a recent development for us, but we had already become experts at wearing masks long before they were ever mandated. Similar to the physical masks that we wear, we are so used to our emotional, spiritual, and intellectual masks that we often forget that they are even on. We use them to protect ourselves—not from a virus—but from one another. We wear a smile to mask our sadness. We wear joy to mask our grief. We wear anger to mask our fear and anxiety. We wear pride to mask our lack of self-confidence and our insecurity. We wear strength to mask our weakness.
The masks that we figuratively wear may not be immediately apparent, but they are constantly in use. We post the highlights of our lives on social media so that others will think that our lives are worth coveting, yet our reality is in shambles. We are broken, run-down, and hopeless, but when someone at work casually asks how we are doing, we smile and respond, “Great! How are you?” We attend church wearing smiles and our “Sunday best,” pretending that we did not just yell and curse at each other in the car just moments earlier. We feel rejected, alone, and lacking in our relationships yet continue “business as usual” without communicating the truth to our partner. We do this so much that we consider it a sign of weakness to be vulnerable and transparent about our struggles, emotions, and feelings. Those are now considered a sign of weakness and an unattractive cry for attention. Even the healthiest marriages struggle. Even the best parents face challenges with their children. Even the strongest friendships encounter obstacles. All of us eventually feel weighed down by our mistakes and poor decisions; everyone faces failure at some point.
Yet, through all of our real life human experiences, we keep the filters on, the masks up, and the prescripted responses cued.
We hang out with friends, chat with family members, attend church groups, and even share beds with our spouses without ever sharing how we are really feeling and what is really occurring under the surface. We choose to stumble, trip, and fall through life alone even though we ALL experience similar moments. The crazy truth is that just the thought of knowing that others around us can relate to our struggles can help us feel better about what we are going through and can encourage us through hard times. But instead, most of us tend to not “go first” in exposing our imperfections, so we all sit in isolation, living behind masks and filters, pretending that life does not hurt sometimes and that we are free of human error. The truth is that we were not created for isolation. Our necessity for community is built into our genes. From the literal beginning of time, God said that it was not good for man to be alone and presented Adam with Eve. We are wired to connect and to walk through life together; however, genuine intimacy cannot occur if we keep our masks on. It is impossible to live behind disguises and experience true connection and authenticity simultaneously.
Removing our masks requires bravery. It means being vulnerable, risking judgment, and facing the fear of rejection. How can we remove our masks when we are so comfortable wearing them? We can do this by choosing to have intentional, meaningful conversations that result in honesty, transparency, and praised vulnerability. I am personally choosing to set an example of this. I am choosing to be vulnerable and open about areas in which I am falling short as a wife, a mom, a daughter, a sister, and a friend. In doing so, I hope to help set the tone for those around me who are struggling with similarities in silence, behind masks, and under filters. It has been said that “when we overcome the fear of being fully known, we can experience the joy of being fully loved.” When we decide to be vulnerable, we summon others to do the same. By doing this, we can experience personal freedom and serve others by offering that freedom to them, as well. As we come to the end of this season of wearing physical masks, it’s time for us to intentionally remove the emotional and spiritual ones, too. We need one another—more than ever. Let’s choose to be brave, vulnerable, honest, and transparent and to give others a safe space so that they can give themselves the permission to do the same.
