I routinely dance in public.

Most of the time I catch myself early enough that I can stuff the dance move and act like a normal person and just tap my toes. But when the music is great (Uptown Funk or MJ anyone?), sometimes the "happy feet" take over.

The strange thing is, it's more effort to act like a "normal person" and be still than it is to just respond to the music and be myself.

In the dance category, putting on an unnatural face, doesn't do any real harm. In fact, saving my loved ones some embarrassment is likely worth forgoing my less than professional dance skills. However, if you're like me, it's often tempting to wear other people's faces.

There's the "pulled together" face and and the "happy face" which are useful in covering up the "hot mess" and "melancholy" faces. The "knowledge" face comes in handy when the "clueless" face is more accurate.

Masks are accessible and easy to wear, but when we trade authenticity for looks, part of our soul is lost.

There is value to having our true selves known; to experience freedom from the imposter.

Remember to shed the masks, to live as yourself this week.

Now I become myself

Now I become myself. It's taken

Time, many years and places;

I have been dissolved and shaken,

Worn other people's faces,

Run madly, as if Time were there,

Terribly old, crying a warning,

"Hurry, you will be dead before—"

(What? Before you reach the morning?

Or the end of the poem is clear?

Or love safe in the walled city?)

Now to stand still, to be here,

Feel my own weight and density!

The black shadow on the paper

Is my hand; the shadow of a word

As thought shapes the shaper

Falls heavy on the page, is heard.

All fuses now, falls into place

From wish to action, word to silence,

My work, my love, my time, my face

Gathered into one intense

Gesture of growing like a plant.

As slowly as the ripening fruit

Fertile, detached, and always spent,

Falls but does not exhaust the root,

So all the poem is, can give,

Grows in me to become the song,

Made so and rooted by love.

Now there is time and Time is young.

O, in this single hour I live

All of myself and do not move.

I, the pursued, who madly ran,

Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

- May Sarton

Fighting The Imposter

Now I become myself