Now, it seems too late.
You stand there with your head down, unable to look yourself in the eye. The pain and disappointment, the shock, are just too intense.
You have wasted your whole life trying to do everything right, to write a success story, to make your parents proud, to live up to the sometimes high expectations that were set for you, not least of all by yourself. You left no stone unturned to create a pleasing image of yourself for those on whose opinion and goodwill you depended. Pride was one of the emotions that this image of you produced. It made you vain; to be with you was at times almost a status symbol.
And yet you now stand before a shambles. Hardly a fragment of your biography has any real substance, it appears before you like an exaggerated curriculum vitae. You have always successfully concealed your abysses and deepest desires, and so you have become a divided person. To the people who believed in you and were apparently close to you, you presented lie after lie. And they believed you willingly, they did not want to see you otherwise. The deception you showed each other was like a tranquilizer to maintain your comfort zones.
And now it is all gone, everyone is gone. You have lost everything, no piece to clothe and warm you, no piece of gold to feed you. The naked truth makes you seem fragile, anxious and vulnerable.
If only you had exposed your truly thin skin to the sun sooner…