Permission to Define: Denied

Today was the first day of J-term, one of my classes, nonverbal storytelling, is going to be earth-shattering. The combination of a compassionate, God-seeking professor and the content we'll be covering is definitely going to change something. We'll see what happens. Anyhow, she was explaining to us today that our face is the most effective expressor as far as non-verbals go. She had us watch a few clips so her point would come across. For the last one, we first watched it entirely muted, she then asked us what we thought was being expressed, she then played it with the music and asked us if we thought differently. The dance was so moving, a bit unnerving, with the girl too scantily clad for my liking - but maybe it helped convey their point better... The song has intense lyrics too- "Gravity" by Sara Bareilles. I'll pop some lines in here:

"You hold me without touch.
You keep me without chains.
I never wanted anything so much
than to drown in your love"

Some people don't need to be physically holding onto you to keep you near them. Do you know what I'm talking about? All it takes is one pleading look and you're trapped. Sometimes the freedom to go is the thing that holds us closest. When we're being held in these freedom chains it seems so easy to think it's what we want more of.

"Set me free, leave me be. I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity.
Here I am and I stand so tall, just the way I'm supposed to be.
But you're on to me and all over me."

I've felt these words at times in my life. You know you're trapped, like a bird in a snare, and you're trying so hard to escape, but no one seems to be able to save you from the fowler's net. God can, but we don't always know how to let Him. We want to be free, but it's such a hard desire to voice when you're in the pull of someone's gravity. We stand tall, invincible, impregnable, but who are we fooling? We all have chinks in our armor, facades we hide behind. We give people the permission to define us when we live in fear. And it's something we all do - live out of fear that is; we wake up ourselves, but by the end of the day we have eroded into the person those we love wish we'd be, or think we are. Of course this is a hyperbole, but could we see it otherwise? Some people are on to our masks, so they tear them off, and kiss the vulnerability beneath. Will it cause scarring- when people truly realize how we are and then they force themselves all over us? We need to be unselfish people, why? Because we need more selfless people in the world- we need more people who will not dig their condemning claws into our hearts of flesh. Masks are protection- they protect our true face- who we are underneath it all. If we act so often, and so well, are we less ourselves, have we forgotten what it means to be human- to be you?