When it comes to feeling my age and the familiar burn of a noose called a, “deadline,” a nostalgic twinge pulls at the back of my mind from a time when video games and lazy summers were the go to way to waste time.

My brother would get every new console that would come out and while he was spending time on the latest and greatest I got to play the N64 as much as I wanted…

And that’s where young Adrian found a game that didn’t feel insulting to his little mind.

That game was The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.

It didn’t feel childish and upbeat in the way I expected. It felt heavy. Quiet. Sad. Every NPC in Clock Town lived on a three-day schedule. They moved with purpose. They worried. They had routines. They had fears.

Above them all that freaky moon was watching… Waiting.

If you’ve never played it, here’s the short version.

You are Link. The Hero of Time, and after breaking the timeline in two with your time travel shenanigans in Ocarina of Time you make your way to a new land called Termina. where an ancient mask has possessed a lonely Imp and dragged the moon from the sky.

It will crash in three days.

Can you stop it in one cycle?

No.

You can’t.

But that’s the point.

You fail. You reset. You keep fragments of knowledge. You gather masks. You learn people’s routines. You save deities called the Giants. And slowly, through repetition, you prepare for a final confrontation.

You cannot win on your first attempt.

You must learn the pattern.

Masks Are Power

In Majora’s Mask, power doesn’t come from a sword upgrade.

It comes from transformation.

The Deku Mask makes you small and fragile but nimble.
The Goron Mask makes you heavy and grounded.
The Zora Mask makes you fluid and graceful.

Each mask changes how the world responds to you.

Each mask lets you survive in spaces that would otherwise reject you.

As a kid, I never questioned that mechanic.

Now I do.

I understand what it’s like to hide behind “normal.”
To rehearse conversations before entering a room.
To study tone, posture, eye contact like it’s physically burning.
To wear a stoic face when emotions don’t present the way people expect.
To smile because you’ve learned that’s what the room requires.

The anxiety of having to talk in front of strangers.

When you grow up undiagnosed and when you don’t yet have language for your mind…

You don’t think you’re adapting.

You think you’re wrong.

So you build a mask.

Not a villain’s mask. Not something cursed.

A survival mask.

One day the mask melds to your face.

Unlike Majora’s Mask there is no magic Ocarina of Time to send you back and reset the cycle…

You must don the strongest mask in your arsenal and keep moving forward.

After all…

With time and pressure…

The strongest mask…

Is yours.

Comments