Taking Off My Mask: How Things Have REALLY Been Going

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

~William Shakespeare

The curtains open on two friends in their late thirties as they run into each other at the grocery store.

JANE: “Oh, hi, Becca! I love following your family on Facebook. How’s Lincoln doing?!”

BECCA: “He’s doing great, considering! He’s a trooper!”

Internal BECCA Voiceover: I’m focusing on the positive. Lincoln IS doing great, considering everything he’s been through. I am SO GRATEFUL for all of the blessings we’ve witnessed… BUT I still wish it felt honest to leave off the “considering”—to energetically say, “He’s doing great”, leave it at that, and fully mean it.

JANE: “Now be honest: How are you doing?”

BECCA: “Good! My boys are doing well, and it’s almost spring! How are you?”

Internal BECCA Voiceover: I’m doing better now that the weather is finally warming up, but the last several months have been HARD!!!! It’s been hard for me to clean my house. It’s been hard for me to write. It’s been hard for me to be social. It’s been hard for me to maintain the healthy habits I formed last year. It’s been hard for me to not beat myself up for not meeting my goals. Please talk about yourself now so I don’t have to be vulnerable.

Please tell me I’m not the only girl who takes the figurative red pen to her comments before letting them escape her mouth!

It has always been difficult for me to be 100 percent, truly authentic—willing to show and share ALL of me—blemishes, imperfections, and all. I’m a recovering perfectionist. There are a million reasons why. I’m working through them in therapy, journals, sessions with my life coach, FB groups, listening to audiobooks and podcasts, writing this blog, etc. I’ll continue to share my successes AND failures as I go! It’s challenging but important work. Change is hard, but it’s also worth it.

When I was in kindergarten, my parents signed me up for acting classes. I was a painfully shy kid, and they wanted something that would help me come out of my shell. My older brother, Danny, was already a part of the Unicorn Theatre, the marvelous youth program in Logan that was founded by one of my all-time favorite human beings, Ruth Call. Rose-scented perfume will forever remind me of that legendary woman who always treated children as equals. Despite being a child who rarely spoke up in groups, I took to theatre like a teacher takes to summer vacation. It was love at first line.

The ability to engage my imagination, clothe myself—literally and figuratively—in another character, and gain recognition for my work and talents lit me up. I thrived. I spent time on stages all the way through college, and I hope someday soon I’ll return to that home away from home. I even founded and taught at an after-school theatre program when I was 18! One particularly poignant day, I had to race from one of my college classes at USU to my beloved mentor Ruth Call’s funeral to the elementary school in order to teach kids as she’d inspired me to do. It’s safe to say that my parents’ goal of helping me open up was met and exceeded.

So…what am I getting at? What do acting classes have to do with perfectionism and me editing the words that come out of my mouth and through my pen or computer?

Simple. I’ve been acting—consumed with painting a pretty, performance-worthy picture—for most of my life.

I recently finished reading (OK, you’re right—listening) to the book Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life by Christian author Emily P. Freeman. According to the book’s description on Goodreads, “As good girls, we focus on the things we can handle, our disciplined lives, and our unshakable good moods. When we fail to measure up to our own impossible standards, we hide behind our good girl masks, determined to keep our weakness a secret…Emily uncovers the truth about the hiding, encouraging women to move from hiding behind girl-made masks and do-good performances to a life…with Christ in God.”

I resonate with so much of what Emily shares in her book. I’m a people pleaser. I learned to put others first early on in life. For better AND for worse, for a myriad of reasons, my focus is often on making those around me feel comfortable instead of on allowing myself to be fully seen and heard. I think this is common for women—especially Christian women. (What do you think? Do you agree? Let me know in the comments!)

The more I’ve worked with my life coach, though, the more I’ve realized that by living this way my whole life, I’ve done myself a disservice. By not allowing others behind the curtains, I’ve sometimes unwittingly made myself feel lonely. Now it’s time for me to take off the makeup and just be me—to allow others to truly see me in all of my natural, imperfect glory.

You might have noticed (or maybe you didn’t, which is totally fine) that before this article I hadn’t posted on my blog for almost two months. Since my goal is to publish at least twice a month, you can imagine how the guilt and shame spiral for that has been getting to me. I’ve luckily come a LONG way from how poorly I used to treat myself, when my thoughts were filled with self-criticism, self-loathing, and “should-ing” on myself. It takes a long time to undo years of bad habits, though.

Just like always wanting to appear in a positive light both on stage and in person, I’ve always wanted to have others recognize me as a “good” writer. I was gifted with the ability to write well naturally; however, as I’ve stated time and time again, I was also cursed with perfectionism. My mom remembers times when I was in elementary school when I literally erased holes into my papers trying to get my letters and words “just right”. Despite being told time and time again throughout high school and college that revisions were necessary, I agonized over almost every word while writing my first drafts—trying to make them perfect. In my highly erroneous thinking, revisions were only required for people who weren’t gifted writers. However, writing did come naturally to me, so I thought my writing shouldn’t need revisions. (#eyerollcity)

It’s taken years and years and years for me to dismantle this false belief. It’s insidious, though. The truth that ALL writing improves with revision hasn’t reached the dark corners of my mind yet. During days/weeks/months like the last few, I can still become paralyzed, unable to force myself to start a project as I stare blankly at the flashing cursor on my screen. 

I’ve had plenty to say over the past few months, but not much of it has been pretty and shiny. I tried to force my rambling thoughts into a coherent, hope-filled devotional like I’m prone to write, but my efforts came up empty. So even though it’s difficult for me, I’m trying to just tell it like it is this time. I’m going to try not to sugarcoat it. (Though, let’s be honest—I probably won’t be able to completely avoid adding some sugar, sweet-tooth that I am. 😉)

• This is a summary of how the past few months have REALLY gone:
  • January started out with both of our boys getting RSV, which turned into double ear infections for poor Lincoln. Considering the fact that they’d also missed school right before Christmas break didn’t improve the situation.
  • The day after Valentine’s Day, I was in a hurry to get Lincoln to a doctor’s appointment. Unbeknownst to me, Lincoln’s walker, which was in front of our Jeep, fell onto the front bumper as I backed out of our garage and driveway. Since I was up high in the Jeep, I couldn’t see the walker hanging out on the front bumper before I moved from “Reverse” to “Drive”. I could, however, hear and feel the giant CRUNCH as I ran over it. I quickly pulled over, wondering what in the world had just happened, and I found Lincoln’s walker in pieces. I doubt the same chain of events could be replicated even if I tried. Yes, I swore. No, we weren’t on time for Lincoln’s appointment. Yeah…I felt like a *great* mom.
  • The day after the walker fiasco, Josh had a surgery to remove a tumor from his cheek. He originally had it removed back in 2017, but it had grown back. As a result, this time the surgery had to be more invasive. We worried about the surgery, the possible side effects, and, of course, whether or not the tumor was benign. Our prayers as well as the prayers of many others were answered! The surgeon ended up being able to do a much less complicated, safer surgery than he’d originally planned. He was able to remove the whole tumor, which did turn out to be benign. We’re so grateful for all of those immense blessings! It was still an emotional month leading up to the surgery, though.
  • In March I spent too many hours to count on the phone with hospitals and our health insurance. Arranging doctor and therapy appointments, figuring out and disputing medical bills, cancelling and rescheduling appointments because our boys got sick AGAIN—These are the things that make up the life of a special needs momma.
  • We were planning on having a big party on April 1st to celebrate Lincoln finishing his cancer treatment one whole year ago! Instead, I got to take him to InstaCare because it turned out he had another ear infection. It wasn’t a surprise since he’d missed school the whole week before due to a bad cold, but I wasn’t amused.
  • This past week? We’ve had to take both of our cars in for repairs and spent over $2k on them. Always a good time.
  • And that summary doesn’t even touch on the grievances I’ve had with Utah’s “Snowmageddon” this year!

So…yeah. The past few months haven’t been great. Sorry this has just turned into a venting session. I’m learning that I need to allow myself to have those every once in awhile, though. It doesn’t mean I’m not grateful. It doesn’t mean I’m not a “good girl”. It just means I’m human.

Last weekend we celebrated Easter. I read, listened to, and watched messages of hope—messages sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, His Atonement, and His resurrection. And I felt like I was able to come up for air. 

It’s a time-worn, perhaps overused tradition to talk about springtime as a season of reawakening and rebirth. As I look out my window and FINALLY see things coming back to life again, though, I can’t think of a better way to describe how I feel. The winter has been dark, but I’m seeing flickers of light, and I’m eager to start chasing them again.