The Monsters Within

Monster, according to the Webster Dictionary, is: an imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly, and frightening.

“When the monsters come out to play/I kick them away. I kick them away.”                                                                             -“Therapy” by little luna music. 

The first two monsters I remember encountering, I didn’t have names for, nor did I know they were monsters until my mother explained. I was in third grade. My best friend and I were the final two girls in an audition process for the lead in a play, “Hansel and Gretel." I was sure I had the part. I mean, really? I had long blonde hair. In pigtails. I wore a brown skirt and white blouse with big puffy sleeves.  I entered the audition with great confidence, and there stood my best friend, her short dark hair in a cute page boy, and she was wearing a completely authentic Swiss  dirndl outfit right down to the white hose and brown shoes. And to my horror, she stood beside the boy who was to play Hansel. He was SHORT! My best friend was SHORT! His hair was short page boy styled brown hair. She  had brown hair. Styled exactly the same. I was blonde, and I was at least three inches taller than him. 

I went through the audition. Brilliantly, I might add. And was not cast. The director approached me. 

“You were excellent, Patty. But you are just too tall.”

Monster #1, rose from within. It was Green. It was leering at me, while I leered at my best friend. It whispered, “You are so much better than her.” 

I noticed the Monster holding hands with another monster. She looked similar to me, but looking closer, not quite. It whispered, “You just aren’t good enough.”

I walked over to my best friend and hugged her. She said the very thing I didn’t need to hear.

“Patty, I didn’t even want to do this. My mother made me come.  You should have been Gretel.”

What?

I WANTED that part. She didn’t . I was furious. I cried all the way home, in the backseat of my mother’s car, sitting beside the monsters, both yapping in my ear. 

Monsters came in a steady stream through my life. In college, I came face to face with live monsters, in the guise of humans. They wore beautiful masks. Quoted the Bible to me. Shook their heads at my dancing. Mocked me. I cried. Until a beloved professor took me aside and explained the monsters were inside them, and if I treated them with kindness, I’d be treating the person not the monster within.

I learned there are those who like being monsters. There are those who wear proudly the monster on their sleeves.  Manipulation. Jealousy. Arrogance. Doubt. Fear. Inadequacy. 

All things from which nightmares are made. I battled many of those within my own being. 

Over the years, I could label the monsters and within a short time call them out. Monsters don’t like the light of day. Monsters, imaginary or real, don’t like it when the truth shines.

I had monsters. I still do. Thankfully, I have friends who lovingly shine the light on whichever monster is present. Usually it’s the “I’m not good enough” monster. I know the world is filled with human monsters. I’ve met my share. Travesty and tragedies at the hands of those who hide behind masks, who gain power through cruelty, who pretend to be understanding, when all along they are gathering information to do more harm. 

But…

In our lifetime, the sooner we learn to identify the pesky and the perilous, the sooner we can call them out. Once into the light of our individual truths, after awhile, most of the monsters don’t want to play with us. We are no longer their playground. We just “…kick them away. Kick them away."