I saw my family this weekend and it reminded me how much of our lives are dictated by those we love.  We become not what we are in life, I believe, but what those we love need us to be.

There is this incredible quote I read once that I think we all can understand.  It went something like this, “I have two faces in the mirror; the one the world sees and the one even my own soul can’t recognize.”  I believe that with my whole heart; I have one face that I put out to the world, and one even I can’t understand.  The true soul that eludes my search and keeps itself hidden in protection from everything that could change it and destroy it.

I have met many people in my life, those that have no interest in knowing who and what they are, those who search diligently for who and what they are, and those who believe they know.  I fall into the middle category; I don’t know all that I am and all that I could be.  I don’t have the truth of my own self, and I don’t know that I ever will.

Like the tides, we change.  We move and become things we didn’t know we could be; some of those things are better and some of those things would make our mothers turn in their potential graves.  But change is inevitable, whether you are talking about the world, the economy, time or our own souls.

I, personally, have a beautiful family.  A family worth knowing and having in my life.  A family that would drop everything to run to my rescue should I need it; and trust me, I have needed it in my life.  But like all great things, there are quirks.  Little bits of their souls that butt against my own.

And I have never figured out in the beauty of my family, their smiles and hope for me, why it is that I can’t find peace.  Why are they not a resting place for me? Because I am an adult? Because I must find that peace within myself?  Despite our own quests that life throws us and demands of us, why can’t we occasionally rest in the arms of those we love?

Is it trust?  I will have to do a post on trust and all my incredible issues with trust.  So let’s ignore that possibility for now.  (Teaser: I don’t believe there is a soul in this world that I can trust.) Maybe it is that little voice in the back of my head that sounds suspiciously like my mother telling me to be something I am not nor will ever be.  Maybe it is the playboy in my father, the man who loves me but always with a string attached.  Maybe it is the competitiveness I feel with my sister, despite the fact I know that she loves me.  But why can’t they see my face, my soul even when I can’t?

My husband’s biggest fear, I believe, is my disease.  Because of this belief I keep many, many things hidden from him.  The truth of what is going on in my head, the truth of how much medicine I am really taking, even the truth of what the doctors are saying.  (This actually backfired on me, so learn a lesson.  On all doctor forms, I always put that they may not contact anyone about my health and mental stability.  The last time I had a mental break, when the doctors wanted to commit me to a hospital – something my husband knows is a fear for me – and my because of those forms my husband had to fight to stop it. Think hard about those forms before like me you allow the lack of trust you have in people to sabotage you before you start.)

Because I don’t tell my husband about what is going on in my head, the one person I really should, I hide the fact that there is a constant barrage of voices in my head pushing me, talking to me.  That is the face I hide from the world.  That is the face I hide from my family.  That is the face I hide from my husband.

It is the other face in the mirror.  The one I couldn’t recognize if it came and bit me in the ass.  It is the face that hides in the darkness of my mind, whispering so silently that the voices become my reality.  Were they screams, I could ignore them; the simple volume enough to show me their reality.  But that hidden face is so silent as to be drowned out by the wind in the early morning.

That other face, the one so hidden scares me.  It is the truth of me. It is the truth about my insecurities, the fears, the honesty that even the love of my family can not overcome.  It is the truth that this world responds to, the truth that children see, and the truth that the innocent shys away from.  It is dark, it is lonely, it is all that I truly am.  And the truth is, she is so much more than the face that I see.