Judgement and Hiding

I haven't quite pinned down what it is I have to hide, but I know there's something...

I have always loved theater and performance. As an only child I was required to entertain myself and play alone a great deal of the time. As a result, in addition to being an avid reader and spending hours in the woods around my childhood home, I've spent an inordinate amount of time in front of the mirror. I lip synced my way through all the albums of musicals my parents owned. My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls, L'il Abner, Rose Marie, The Music Man, Oklahoma ... I'd make up plots to accompany the songs, acting out the story I contrived as I mouthed the words. I learned to look at myself without embarrassment or self-consciousness as long as I was being someone else. It was okay to adopt the sultry moves I imagined went with the words, make faces, smile - animation I rarely exhibited as the shy and invisible girl I really was. I still remember the embarrassment I felt if my parents stumbled upon me when I was doing this...worse than being caught masturbating would have been - an abrupt transformation from the creature I was in my imagination to the awkward child pretending to be something I wasn't.

Later, when I actually auditioned for plays in school and was able to engage in "real" theater, with other actors and players, it was the first place I felt comfortable going outside the boundaries without fear of judgement. I found it's easier to try new things and take risks, to be someone, as long as there's a layer of alter ego between myself and the one taking the risk. As a young actress, I stumbled drunkenly around the stage as Sunny the rag doll (trying to channel the straw man in the Wizard of Oz), minced around in a flirty outfit as a hillbilly in L'il Abner, danced a can-can dressed as a tart in a flouncy skirt. I even had my very first kiss onstage. The theater department was my place - the first place I felt I was truly "seen" in school, a lending of legitimacy to my solitary and secret practice of escape. I ate up the attention, even as I realized it was for being all those someones I was not, not for being just me. I never meant for this to become a theme of my life, but it has.

In life there is always judgement. In a situation where there's an audience, they can either love what you do, hate it, laugh when they should or walk out. But in theater, nothing is real. You adopt a persona, and you can bleed out anything into it you choose with a layer between you and the vulnerability that might be there otherwise if you exposed those same aspects of your character in real life. In theory, this protects you from any judgement because if there is any rejection it's not of you, but of what you projected.

The risk is that you can become dependent on this separation. I've used the option to act 'as if' so much, it's taken up more hours of my life than the times I'm really me. I'm not a super star, not a celebrity, but I imagine sometimes I spend as much of life in a role created just for the public as Madonna or any other performer might. It's gotten me through tough situations, job interviews for one. Conflicts at work are easier when you can play someone else. It's been helpful in many stressful situations.

So, back to hiding. I understand in D/s there can be no hiding, no dishonesty. Its similar to being onstage, a theater of two, only there is no play acting. Or rather the play acting that is done is just a vehicle that assists in the uncovering of the truths.

It takes a lot for me to expose myself. Not sexually, I'm comfortable with my body, it's just a shell, a place I live in, nothing really to do with me. In fact, it's often a useful barrier, to distract others from the rest of me. Although even as I write that I realize it's no longer true, because knowing my body belongs to someone else has changed that ability to disengage. Its as if I'm more present in myself when I'm owned.

What is the most difficult to expose is my head and my heart. I understand that with control and will bending, there must be instruction. I have to be made aware when I've transgressed. I have to understand what is required and what is inexcusable. Its difficult to know where the line is. Cold words make my heart pound in a scene, but they also cause anxiety. Being reminded of my shortcomings always leads to fears of rejection and abandonment, and an urge to run away and hide. When I'm asked to share my feelings and desires, its difficult because I'm not certain they're okay. What if I open up, trust that much and then am found so flawed and inadequate anyway? There is no person who can truly love unconditionally.

Keeping my eyes down, holding still through pain, kneeling, spreading my legs when told to is easy, when compared to opening my mind to the scrutiny of another when it matters so much.