The Girl With Many Faces

I once knew a girl who had many faces. She was born in Paramount, California where movies are made. That must have been why she was so good at acting. She never fit in, even in her own family so she became what everyone wanted her to be. She was the smart one, so she never asked questions when she didn’t understand, she was voted most likely to succeed so she never told people that had failed at some things, she was a Daddy’s girl that held bitterness in her heart for the man she loved the most. And then she moved to Texas where it was even harder for to fit in, because she didn’t know anyone and she didn’t sound like them either.

She watched her parents call their constant arguing a marriage. Texas was supposed to be a fresh start but it felt like a new nightmare. Not only did she wear a mask with her family now she had to wear one at school. She pretended that her family was perfect so that meant she could never have friends over. But she met a group of girls who seemed to accept her so she let her guard down and invited them into her world, only to have her parents remind her why she needed to wear a mask. Her childhood was hard because she was shown all the wrong things but was expected to do the right ones. She wore a smile that hid a broken heart. A heart that was let down by the ones who were supposed to build it up. She looked for love without ever knowing what it really meant. She did the best she could but the masks became easier to wear. Instead of exposing her heart to get broken, she closed and put on another face: anger. This was a girl who thought protection came in the form of rubber instead of submission. The first person outside of her family that said they loved her got one of her most precious gifts.

At 14, she began to wear the face of promiscuity. Using her body to get the attention she thought she deserved, she got comfortable with wallowing in the mud. What she didn’t realize is that she wasn’t experiencing love because she still had a mask on. She didn’t love herself to take it off. She spent the next 7 years of her life trading one face for another, never letting the real her see the light of day. Why? Because she realized that everyone had fallen in love with the girl that could party the hardest, drink the most, and curse the loudest. Although, everyone seemed to love her….she could not figure out how to love herself. She had worn so many faces for so long that she had no idea who she really is. The once “smart girl” now wore the face of college dropout with no future worth thinking about. One day, she found herself looking in the mirror and no longer recognized what she saw. Who was the girl? Who had she become? Why was she here? She had to take off all the masks she had been wearing and expose her hurt to herself. There was no one left to please because she was tired, tired of fighting, tired of lying, tired of sleeping around, and simply tired of living. She knew she had done everything that she could and she gave up. She finally surrendered to that voice that had been calling her, the one she had been ignoring for so long. She decided to give God everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

A lot happened to her after that day, things that discouraged her and things that made her cry but what changed is that she dealt with them with authenticity and truth, something she never had before. She’s traveled the world with a husband who loves her for who she was and who she’s become but the greatest discovery she has ever made was herself.

She is me!

With All My Love, Mrs. Truscott