The Monster Within

I think I finally see who I really am.  All these years of wondering who is the real me hiding under the surface, under the ‘me’ that I show the world, that I want to make myself and others believe is the real me.  I have seen this truth before, but never accepted it, kept pushing it back under, deeper each time.  But I think this time not only did I see the truth, the real me, but I think I started to accept that the real me is not the me I hoped it would be.  

For all these years, I created  ‘selves’ for every situation.  A ‘self” that I want so desperately to be the real self, the real me.  But even after all these years, I still knew it wasn’t real.  I wanted the selfs that I created to be who I really was.  But they only go skin deep, like a carnival mask  that is adapted for every need.  I wanted so badly to believe that the self I show was really me–kind, caring, understanding, gentle, generous and compassionate.

And yet, as I search to find the me under the mask, I always knew the real me was something much more undesirable hiding in the depths of my being.  The one thing I have wanted more than anything in the world was to be nothing like my mother.  I even despise looking at myself in the mirror now, because all I see is her.  I hate when my voice has her tones, her raspiness, her sounds.   I hate when I hear myself say things and then realize that’s what she would’ve said.  I despise her with every fiber of my being, and probably always will.  In me, all she ever saw was something to crush, to consume, to torture and punish,  something to destroy the life out of.  All my life, I wanted nothing more than to be as far away from her as possible; to never see, hear, feel, or be like her in any way.  To complete eradicate her from my existence, forever.

Now, for 5 years, I have been free from her, except for 2 recent letters which I have ignored.  I have been improving in seeing her less in me.  Until now.  Now, when I see who I really am surface from the depths of my inner oblivion.  I am what I always feared becoming.  I am cruel, visious, violently hateful.  I am wicked and evil.  It has always been there, under the depths, but I refused to see, to believe.  I am exactly like her.  This is the true me.  In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth kills Banquo, and tries to wash the blood off her hands, but it will not go.  Because the truth of who she is is not the person she shows to the world, who she wants to believe is the real her.  The true Lady Macbeth is shown as she washes, ‘out out damn spot‘.  She is evil.  She is cruel and sick and twisted.  This real self cannot be washed away, no matter how many kind and loving and caring constructions of self are made to show the to the world.

No matter what she or I do, how many faces we create, the real truth is always there.  No wonder I have always hated who I am.