Popcorn and Masks

I’ve been thinking about solitude and masks.

Not the pretty kind, but the kind you forget you’re still wearing until solitude rips it off. The ones that blur into your skin, where performance ends and you begin.

I’ve thought about what shows up when no one is watching, and about the characters we keep playing even when the curtain should’ve dropped long ago. Solitude pulls one way, it forces you to sit with the raw version of yourself. Performance pulls the other, it convinces you to keep editing, pretending.

Most of us live somewhere between the two, not fully honest, not fully hidden.

Of course, philosophy is easy until it collides with something stupidly ordinary. Like the night I went to the movies alone and realized, wait… I don’t have to share my popcorn. Revolutionary. For the first time, I dumped in a box of Buncha Crunch. Salty, sweet, perfect. A combination so obvious I got upset at myself for not figuring it out sooner.

But now that I have? Not sure I can go back.

If solitude can change how I eat popcorn, what else in me is up for rearranging?

Solitude isn’t romantic. It’s hardly wrapped in self care rituals. It’s walking into your home and realizing the only sound is your own shoes. It’s eating dinner without commentary. It’s sitting in silence so long your thoughts start having their own thoughts.

Who am I when there’s no witness? Do I exist the same way without confirmation, without reflection? Why am I still sleeping on the left side of the bed?

When the room doesn’t echo back, you hear yourself more clearly and not always kindly but always honestly.

Living alone does strange things. Like catching yourself in identities you used to wear when you lived with someone else: the borrowed mannerisms, the softened edges, the things you didn’t say because they wouldn’t approve. Over time you morph into a version of yourself you’re unable to recognize.

About a week ago I went to see the new Margot Robbie movie: A Big Bold & Beautiful Journey. Colin Farrell’s in it too (let’s not leave him out, he’s not so bad himself). At the beginning, there’s a line that stuck with me:

“We’re all actors, and sometimes we have to perform to get to the truth.”

It made me think about how often performance creeps into relationships.

Maybe the version our partner first met wasn’t the whole picture. Maybe we trimmed pieces off, hid the parts that felt too raw, or dressed ourselves in a character we thought would be easier to love. Or maybe we were authentic once, but people evolve; layers build, identities shift, and the old self becomes more of a mask.

And then there are the long term partnerships: the ones that survive on habit, appearance, reputation. You know the type. I know the type. Entire identities get built on the image of us. But what happens if one person wants to grow, change, reinvent themselves? Do they risk it or stay in character because it’s easier to keep the play running? We call it love, but half the time it’s fear: fear of what a partner might think, fear of what everyone else will say after so many years of “knowing us.” We confuse safety with love, conformity with devotion. But safety and stagnation are often synonymous.

And since when did partnership mean dissolving into one blurred identity? What’s wrong with two full, flawed, beautiful, strangely separate people, choosing each other, again and again without collapsing into one?

And then there’s a quote I read recently:

“The comforts of conformity are not meant for the brave.”

Maybe that’s the point. Comfort tames you. Discomfort keeps you awake. And I’d rather spend this One Big Bold & Beautiful Journey unsettled than asleep.