The Mask

PROFOUND REFLECTION ON MORTALITY & MASKED PAIN

People ask me how I’m doing, and I give them the lines.

"Two feet on this side of the dirt is better than six feet on the other.”

“I’m on the right side of the dirt.”

Someone says, “Good to see you,” and I fire back— “Better seen than viewed.”

It sounds witty. It sounds strong.

It sounds like a man who’s made peace with the fragile thread we all walk on.

But the truth is… sometimes those words are nothing but patchwork over a wound that never fully heals.

Because when you’ve brushed up against death- really brushed up against it (like I have)

you don’t wake up the same.

Mortality doesn’t leave you with peace.

It leaves you with a scar, a quiet echo that follows you everywhere.

Some mornings, I feel it humming under the surface, a reminder that life is borrowed,

that time is rented, that survival doesn’t always feel like victory.

People hear my sayings and they laugh, or nod, or pat my shoulder.

They don’t hear the tremble beneath them.

They don’t see the nights where I stare at the ceiling, wondering why I’m still here and why here still hurts.

I say, “I’m on the right side of the dirt,”

because it’s easier than admitting

that some days the weight of living feels heavier than any grave ever could.

I say, “Better seen than viewed,”

because it’s simpler than admitting

I’m still scared of the day someone might be standing over me instead of standing with me.

These little one-liners…they’re not jokes.

They’re shields. Thin ones, cracked ones—

but shields all the same.

The truth—the real truth—is this:

I am still fighting.

I am still here, yes.

But being here doesn’t mean I’m all right.

It means I’m trying.

It means I’m choosing life even when it feels shaky.

It means I’m carrying the memories, the loss,

the grief, and the pieces of myself I’m still trying to put back together.

It means I’m doing the best I can with the days I was given after almost losing them.

So when you hear me say those little phrases,

know this—

I’m not being funny.

I’m being honest in the only way I know how.

I’m not okay…but I’m alive.

And for today,

that’s going to have to be enough