A cup o' joe

Sitting in a coffee shop can encourage academic endeavors, but it can also foster a sense of uselessness. Here, in this booth, I have my feet propped on the bench across from my slouching body. Music blaring in my ears, I occasionally glance at the fellow students. They, too, are slouched, flipping pages of textbooks and furrowing their brows as if to absorb its contents. I am not as successful. Obviously at my computer, my mind swarms with thoughts that bounce like Flubber in my skull.
If I'm completely honest, Shakespeare and his shrew don't have my full attention. I'm supposed to be writing about the disguises the great playwright and poet used in "The Taming of the Shrew" but the thought that keeps thrusting itself to the forefront is the applicability of disguises/masks in my life.
Masks. They really are everywhere. I have a few. Well, more than a few. They are safe...at least, that's what I let myself believe. As I'm discovering through my paper on Shakespeare, I can don any exterior mask but the internal thoughts remain the same. It is not until the internal are exposed that change occurs.
Here's the kicker: What if I don't want change? What if I like my secrets? What if the idea of being separated from everyone else is more appealing than subjecting myself to constructive criticism and accountability?
In reality, it only takes one secret to turn one week into a hard week, a week that you look back and wish you had slept through all those hours. The frustration pounds your morale into the floor and the shame only helps you burrow your secret deeper into your being. That secret, that shame, will more than likely make the following week harder and you will feel beaten into the ground again.
Trampled, holding onto a coffee mug, I convince myself that I have the power to pick myself up again and face another week of living a half-life. Do secrets have that much power? To take away half of my life value? Let me tell you, I believe it does. We spend so much time protecting that secret, caressing it in our minds, scolding ourselves for the caresses, trying to throw it away, and only succeeding in putting it back where it was before.
I can philosophize about secrets but I have to challenge myself and ask why I'm letting these ideas dominate my mind. All of the mental space that God gave me should not be filled with thoughts of self-preservation or control. Where did I get the idea that all of that was acceptable? It's going to take strength stronger than espresso to break my mask and that is only one. Maybe you identify with what I'm saying. That secret you've coddled no longer belongs in your arms. It belongs in God's. I don't know how to get mine there, so only you and God can know how to solve that dilemma. All I know is that my white-knuckled grip isn't going to let go easily.