As I’m preparing to attend the much-anticipated black tie dinner, a palatable dress finally selected, my boys ask me why adults bother with the costumes just to go out and eat together. Where is the fun in that, they wonder? Seems like work. Little do they know the theme is a masquerade ball, and all guests are encouraged to don decorative masks to accessorize their formalwear. I didn’t mention this nuance as I’m sure the conversation would have moved to suggestions around blood-gushing, slasher type guises of the Halloween variety. Having not made the time to shop on-line last week, I am thrilled to discover that masks are brought to us at the event and I am able to purchase, at a very reasonable price I might add, a much more appropriate sparkling black and gold version with a silk ribbon to tie underneath my hair. It’s fun to conceal ourselves in full regalia; I am surprised by how much I love the freedom of the facade for a few hours, and that somehow it seems I’m not quite myself behind the mask.
Last week I was a guest at an event where a woman CEO spoke about her career. She’s wildly successful, clearly evident by the job she holds and the growth her company has achieved under her leadership. Her story is extremely positive, but oddly, I found that as she talked I started to feel bad about myself. As she recounted her career path, the stops she made along the way to today’s role, it all seemed too easy for her, almost surreal. While I’m certain in reality it wasn’t, and that she has worked extremely hard and made significant sacrifices to get to where she is, I just couldn’t relate.
She appeared too perfect. Her stories about how she sat down with her kids virtually to help with homework while in a hotel room in another city, meant to communicate that it’s possible to parent on the road, left me admonishing myself for my lackluster performance in this area, and I don’t even travel every week. Her triumph of retaining her nanny despite a move to the suburbs was meant to illustrate creative problem solving, but reminded me of those years when what little money I made barely covered daycare, let alone a live-in nanny.
There were no stories about how her four-year-old attached himself to her leg some mornings at daycare drop off, leaving her walking into the office near tears, full of guilt over choosing work over staying at home with her kids. She didn’t address compensation challenges; leaving us to wonder if she’d ever been in that place where she considered quitting, not believing she’d ever climb high enough in the organization to be able to afford the help she needed at home to stay in the workforce.
The final blow to me personally came when she talked about how important it is to choose the right partner, someone supportive who works with you to grow your career and manage the family you’ve both created. What if you didn’t get lucky like that? What if your partnership isn’t a partnership at all? What if the relationship was so destructive you needed to make the choice to go it alone? How do we give those women hope that they can succeed?
She said she’s never doubted herself. To me it seems implausible; thankfully Psychology Today feels the same way and talks about how to overcome this pervasive feeling in this post about imposter syndrome. The truth is we can’t get in someone else’s head. We all choose to tell our stories from our own viewpoint. While I thought I’d be tweeting all sorts of great words of wisdom, I realize instead that by leaving out the hard parts of the journey we void any chance to inspire those living through the hard parts today. And so I walk away with renewed conviction to my quest to be real; a greater understanding of the power authenticity brings, and that because of the challenges I’m living through I can be truly inspiring if I’m brave enough to take off my mask.
Why do we adults bother with the costumes when it’s proven again and again that the genuine and the raw is what resonates? When we divulge our adversity, our self-doubt, our flaws, these admissions lead us to common ground. Others can begin to see how they might reach their dreams when we allow them a glimpse into success garnered in imperfect ways.
I like to dress up, no doubt. But it sure feels good at the end of the evening to take off the mask, the shoes, the opera gloves that caused me to abstain from bread and the pistaschio dessert cannoli I couldn’t get my hands on, and empty my gorgeous little bag with the cameo latch picked up at the vintage shop in San Diego years ago. I love it, but it’s too small to hold all of the “stuff” that makes me real. 
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