That elusive quest for yourself

There's this person you always present to other people. It is the person you want others to believe you are. In fact, you wish you were this kind of person. But you know you aren't.

So you fake it.

You work tirelessly to keep up this act. In fact, you master it so well and practice for so long that you forget who you really are.

So when the days come when you are tired of pretending, you find yourself in a dilemma. It is not like you can just drop the act and revert to your normal self. You see, normal doesn't really exist for you.

Fake is your normal. 

The friends you have, the neighborhood you live in, even the job you have... were all part of the act. You pretended too long you got used to it -- it became a lifestyle. The fake you is the only person the world has ever known. And you are slowly realizing that the fake you is the only person you have come to know.

It is easy being fake. It comes naturally. Muscle memory and all.  Going back to normal and back to the real you is not like letting go of a rubber band or a steel spring. Things won't just snap back to the way they "ought" to be. 

Here you are, tired of putting up an act and vowing to live the life you have been dealt. But you are so inexperienced. So unqualified. The life that is really yours is so unfamiliar. You actually have to learn to be you from scratch.  

Sometimes you look at the amount of work you need to put into it and you are tempted to give up. You find yourself slipping back into fake-mode. Being you, the real you, becomes a fight. You have never really been you, because you were pretending from the moment you were aware of what was happening around you. 

But you know you need to do it. There is no other way to live with yourself without resenting yourself. Any other life than your life will be less than life. 

So you look for help and guidance wherever it may be found. You turn to whoever will offer it.

You grope in the dark world of meditational trances and you scale the heights of self-help literature. You go to find yourself. You escape to discover home. But it doesn't really work, does it? You never really get there, do you?