Let’s be honest — the heaviest Halloween costumes we wear don’t come from the store. They’re the masks we’ve stitched together over years, sometimes decades of pretending.
- The “I’m fine” mask while our hearts are in free fall.
- The “super duper mom” mask when the kids are actually in crisis.
- The “I can handle it” mask when we haven’t slept in months from worry.
- The “we’re doing great” mask when your primary relationship is failing.
Here’s the thing: grit isn’t about tightening your ponytail and powering through. Resilience looks like setting the mask down and saying, “Actually? I’m not okay.” Strength can be soft. Courage can look like honesty.
In the months leading up to the implosion of my marriage, I put on every mask in the drawer.
Things were wrong and bad and off, and every intuitive alarm bell was blaring. It was a sea of red flags and, until it was already too late, I ignored them all. I just wanted to make it all fine.
Like I wrote in AWAKE “It wasn’t fine, but I tried to make it fine. Our marriage wasn’t fine, but I pretended it was. The kids weren’t fine, but I told them they were. He wasn’t fine, but I treated him like he was.”
That act nearly broke me. In fact, when I recall how I felt in 2020, the seven months before the actual ending were as painful as the breach.
Awake life, this new path I’m learning to walk, isn’t about faking it till you make it. Or faking it until it magically self-corrects. Spoiler: the fake life will never lead you anywhere beautiful. It is a trap door, and either you will pull the cord or someone else finally will, but either way, all you can do is wait in fear because it won’t hold forever.
Living awake is about choosing grit — the kind that sustains you when you decide to live differently. Grit isn’t glamorous; it is telling the truth even when it costs you. But I’ll tell you what: it also sets you free. This is the truest truth.
Our unofficial October in the Jen Hatmaker community — Strength in Every Struggle — isn’t about hustling harder. (Can we be done hustling harder, pleeeeease??) It’s about reinvention and resilience. It’s remembering that when the ground shifts beneath us, we don’t need shinier masks, we need truer faces.
So here’s what I’m inviting you to sit with this month:
- What mask have you worn the longest, and how has it shaped you?
- What strength might rise up in you if you laid it down?
If you’re carrying the weight of a mask right now, maybe October is the month to set it down. Maybe not in one dramatic swoop — just a little at a time. Maybe you start with honesty in your journal; after all, telling yourself the truth is the first step. And maybe then with one trusted friend. Or even here, in this community where pretense isn’t required and we will hold your truth with gentle hands.
The fact is, you are already strong. You don’t have to prove it. You just have to live it.