Masks and Green Paper Bills

She hated big cities. She always had. Everything was loud and all at once. Flashing lights. Honking horns. Wailing sirens. Highways that were still filled with cars at midnight. It was all too much. The city, the country, they were like hard rock and banging drums versus classical music. She loved the rolling green of the country, deserted beaches, everything in walking distance. The absence of snarling machines and city noise. Silence. She loved the silence. 

They were here now, in the Ritz Carlton of neighborhoods. This wasn’t her. The bubble that the people lived in, the way life status was defined by how many square feet your house was, what color credit card was nestled in your wallet. Personalities were worn as masks, changing day by day, rarely slipping back to reveal the person behind. Sometimes she let herself be like that, but it wasn’t her. This wasn’t who she wanted to be. This wasn’t how she wanted to end up.

She hated masks.

She dreamed of living in a place where a person was defined by more than a tag on a pair of jeans, by more than the worth of their shoe closets. She dreamed of a place without masks. A place where people flaunted the face underneath without an ounce of shame. She wanted to do something influential, something that could change other people's lives for the better. She didn’t need a mask. She wanted to make a difference, not a fortune.

~ Whitney B.