It would seem that you can look someone in the eye and know with whom you are conversing. Ah, but that just isn’t true. Behind the façade many people show to the world is a broken or wounded human. One filled with such pain as to be unbearable and possibly irreparable. You won’t know that though; not unless they choose, at some point to stop laughing and making you laugh, long enough to allow you inside. Inside to the heart that hasn’t healed. Many people refer to these folks as the clown hiding the tears. Laughing on the outside while crying on the inside.
What would make someone, anyone, want to bottle up their pain and show the world only the happy and carefree face of a clown? Love. Wanting love, wanting to be able to give love and needing not to be the sad one, the broken one, the one who never got over the loss. There are losses one cannot get over. There are heartbreaks that last a lifetime and there are things one can never, ever forget or release. What one can do, however, is hide it and move on. Hide it from friends and sometimes even family and just smile. Look for the sunny side of everything and keep the darkness for alone time. Keep the sadness for the nights and the tears for the pillow. Pray daily for strength to really accept and move on while pretending to do that. Pretending so hard that everyone believes it has happened, if you are the clown. And if you are the one who always brings the sunshine into every room you enter. You always have a smile and you always have a deep, from the toes laugh to share with everyone you meet. No one walks away from you without feeling just a little better than when they walked in. That’s how it’s done. Oscar worthy acting.
Behind the antics of most clowns, I believe, lies the heart of a tender and easily crushed soul. I find the life of the party people are the most easily hurt and those hurts are often much deeper than an onlooker would imagine. The clown will not let you see that. The smile will hide from you any pain you may have caused. Be wary of the clowns in your life and treat them with care. They are truly fragile and needy.
The tears are never far beneath the surface, waiting for the night.
Jo
