The Daily Disguise

I stood by the window of my living room, diving into a bag of “low sodium” Lay’s potato chips, at 3:20 AM. Yeah, I celebrated this decision with a little twirl, low sodium, woo-hoo! Wait… I know my proud moment of a health-conscious decision in the middle of the night doesn’t hold much value, but I promise it gets better.

Looking out, across the way to the B wing of apartment units, there were a few scattered lights on, similar to a game of Connect Four gone horribly wrong. As my gaze drifted across the brick building, my eyes fixed on a unit with a clear view of the interior, and I couldn’t help but wonder, “Is that guy actually awake over there or did he fall asleep with his TV on?”

You see, sleep never came easy for me, but insomnia was now the most predictable event of 2020. In just a few hours, I’ll be handed a mask to wear for my eight-hour shift at the hospital. Everyone will begin their day with the same routine-hand sanitizer, mask and temperature check. We’ll desperately try to smile with our eyes to greet each other while I’ll secretly hope the wrinkles around my eyes don’t worsen with my exaggerated expressions. Each day when I put on the mask, I will lose a part of myself… or so I thought.

The truth is, before 2020, we each wore a mask, a disguise. We smiled for our patients to calm their fears, when in reality, sometimes their faith in us was more powerful than our ability to heal. We hugged our family and friends in excitement on a Friday night because sometimes, the last image we saw on the computer screen before the end of shift, was a medication order for a morphine infusion intended for comfort care. Here’s an obvious one: we occasionally escaped to the restroom because sometimes, we needed a moment alone to hide behind closed doors and remember how to breathe again after a code blue remained in flatline. Our masks were invisible and sometimes, we wore more than one design. Now, we blatantly wear masks but have only a thread of resilience to keep us from bursting at the seams. We now try to subdue our own fears, breakdown, display moments of weakness and crave those tight hugs more than ever. How incredible is it that we now reveal our true selves more freely without the essential signature smile? Well, it just so happens that I never found a lipstick hue that suited me anyway, at least no one is missing out on that rosy…

Related posts:

Ten years into his career in the financial services business, Paul Adams thought his professional career was on track. Then he got fired. The promotion Paul had been working toward for a decade went…

There are some obvious concerns surrounding taxes and how it could convolute your business if done wrong. It is necessary to work out taxes, duties, and other legal obligations of the country/state…

This prolonged bull market is in itself unusual given it’s longevity and precipitously highly debt issuance. It is in denial of an over leveraged, disproportionate economy. And this was all preceding…