Please Hear What I Am Not Saying

“I tell you everything that is really nothing, and
nothing of what is everything, do not be fooled by what I am saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying.”~
Charles C. Finn

So, I was Facebooking the other day (shocking, I know) and this was a friend from high school's status. Read it again. Pretty good, huh?

I have been having those "enh" days. Which, during this time of year, I tend to have some of those. If your a close friend or part of my family, you know why. May...well it sucks arse for me. While you're smelling the flowers and thinking oh how lovely, I'm thinking that they remind me of a funeral home. Anyway...I'm digressing. So, back to what I was trying to say.....My friends know that these kinds of days, for me, don't happen that often. Mainly because I am busy trying to make sure that my friends are okay, taken care of, etc., or taking care of my own family, that I don't have time to have an off day. I'm busy trying to make people laugh, trying to be funny.  I like it this way. Takes the focus off of me. My friends know, that if I'm having an "enh" kind of day, that the right way to handle me, is not to be short/curt with me or treat me any different than if I'm having a fantastic day.  And by all means, they don't accuse me of being a bad friend because I'm thinking of myself for a change.  I mean, yeah...they are thrown off a bit, because I'm not making them my primary focus, that I really don't want  to listen to their problems right now...but almost immediately they realize that there is something wrong. What they also know is that I am not a share my feelings/emotions kind of gal. I can be there for YOU all day long, but when it's my off day, chances of me telling you what's wrong...are nil. I clam up. Can't do it. I think this drives my husband crazy too, but he's been with me long enough to know that I will open up in my own way, on my own time.

Anyway, so then I read this quote and I immediately think, I have got to find out where this came from. Then, I find this poem. If you were to ask me what kind of person I am, I wouldn't even know where to begin to tell you. But this....THIS poem...hit the nail on the head...for me and so many others, I'm sure. It basically says that although I wear a tough face and seem so strong, that I am just like you. I have issues. I have problems. I am just like anyone else on this Earth. I guess my little addition to it would be that when that mask slips and shows that I'm NOT superwoman, don't treat me differently because I'm not what you are needing at that moment. Here's the entire poem...share your thoughts.....



Please Hear What I Am Not Saying
By:  Charles C. Finn

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
masks that I'm afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled,
for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well
as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command
and that I need no one,
but don't believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,
and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without
and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings--
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach to me
the blinder I may strike back.
It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.