Walking Tall

If you go out and meet someone new, you’ll usually find an inviting, friendly smile on their face. If you start a conversation with them, you’ll get some basic information. What you won’t learn is what’s actually going on in their minds. The common misconception is that, if you become good friends with the person, they’ll tell you. People keep their secrets hidden by a smile, and lie in order to keep them. Sometimes they even lie to themselves, for they live in fear of its truth. There is no better example of this than Desperate Housewives. Back in season three, the deceased Rex Van de Kamp explains this to us, “My name is Rex Van De Kamp. I always hated cemeteries when I was alive. Now that I'm dead, I like 'em even less. Here's where I used to live; a whole lot nicer, don't you think? The place hasn't changed much since I left- as tasteful and tidy as ever. Everything perfect, at least on the surface. My family was the same way. Look at us. You'd never guess how ticked off we all were the day this was taken, but that was the thing about us Van De Kamps. To really fit in, you had to have a smile that gave away nothing.” This much is true for the every single character in the show, and also in each and every one of us. Think about it- what’s the one thing that makes you really angry, sad, or scared in your life? Are you ever going to admit it? Nope. See, there’s this little thing called pride, and we all have it, even if we think we have nothing to be proud of. If that’s the case, you should be proud of the fact that you’re still standing up. That little bit of pride is what keeps us from spilling all out secrets; it forces us to walk tall, because no matter how hard life can be, we don’t want people to know how hard it actually is. So we paste that smile on our faces in the hope of projecting the image of stability, both physical and emotional. We suck it up and move on. We put our pain on the back burner and save it for another time, when we are behind closed doors and can maintain our dignity. We hold our heads up high, because we’re too proud to admit that something isn’t right. In the face of disaster, we walk tall.