The Man in the Mirror

Getting ready for the Kingdom Hall was a pain in the ass. I hated it. I delayed it as long as possible. It eroded my soul just a little more every time I did it because I was in the process of putting on a costume for the role I was playing three times a week.

As I've written before, my family was not clean. In the physical sense, we were downright filthy. I'll spare the worst of the details, but I have a memory of a thoroughly decayed apple on my dresser. Yeah. Gross.

As a natural byproduct of that disarray, having clean clothes to wear to the Kingdom Hall was often a struggle. As predictable as it was, no great effort was ever made to preserve our Sunday-best (and Tuesday and Thursday), or spare it from the horrors of the cluttered floor. It is no lie that we once sat at the Hall on a Sunday trying to locate the wafting aroma of cat urine, eventually discovering that it came from my brother's neck tie. You can't make this stuff up, people.

I've already covered in some detail the efforts that we went through to convey a sense of piety and righteousness. We knew all the right words. No one could rightly challenge us on our vocabulary alone. But dressing the part was another matter entirely.

The clothes dryer became my best friend. Wrinkled suits and shirts could be tumbled for a few minutes on high heat with dryer sheet for a seemingly fresh-from-the-cleaners smell. The suit jacket covered a multitude of stains upon shirts that needed washing. Socks, so long as they were dark, didn't need to be matching colors.

I last attended a Special Assembly Day when I was twenty-three. That was also the last time I dressed up and played the part. I looked in the mirror that day and realized that I didn't know who looked back. I knew who he should be, but it was an identity that didn't belong. It was a mask. A disguise. Hiding in plain sight, I wanted most to be unnoticed. My heart wept because I knew that for the sake of inclusion, I needed to remain anonymous. It was a life of deception right down to my clothes.

I once had a friend explain identity crises by using the example of clothes. Imagine you woke up this morning and found a closet full of clothes that you recognize and that fit you, but which are not yours. Day after day, you put them on and go to a job that you know how to do, but belongs to the person who owns your clothes. Your coworkers call you by a name that matches your ID, but is the name of the person whose clothes you wear.

After a day, it may be amusing. After a month, it could be vexing. After years, your soul has been crushed and you don't know who you are anymore.

In the theme that has been my life, the costume was just enough. Not flashy enough to be obvious, not trashy enough to be conspicuous. When weighed against other facets of my Christianity and daily life (because they were separate), the concept of mediocrity is consistent and insignificant. Taken together, there is very little in my life to which I have aspired or excelled. When you become a Jack-of-all-trades yet master-of-none, it's hard to know who you are. Are you everything without being anything? Is there anything that people correlate to you as a unique feature. Are you even you? Or are you just a half-hearted reflection of what people think you should be?

I've begun to contemplate in the last few months just how much of my life is a facade. I'm so accustomed to being hidden that I don't really know how to be open. It has led to countless heartbreaks, stresses, depressions, and maybe even the death of my marriage.

It doesn't make me a bad person. Just an uncertain one. Though that doesn't mean I'm a good person either. I'm simply a person who is trying to recognize his reflection for who he is. I may not know me just yet, and perhaps I'll never know, but I can at least tell you what I am not.

I am not pretending anymore.