I See You, But Do You See Me?
It’s been long enough.
Be who I need you to be:
I’m waiting for you.
Hiding in plain sight…
Great line, right?
Unless you’re the invisible one.
Then it describes you. You don’t have to think, you don’t have to wonder, because you know too well how it is.
Unseen and unheard, looked over and beyond and around because there’s nothing to see here, nothing worth stopping for. It is terrifying, slamming ice cold horror.
The worst of it is that you would do anything, absolutely anything you could come up with to do for just one person, just one, to see you as your glowing, misshapen earnest self doing her best each and every moment of each and every day.
No one tells you how awful it is to be invisible when they’re teaching and guiding and showing you the ways to get ahead in the world. Not at all. Blend in by doing the right different things in the unique but easily absorbed way. If this way doesn’t work, try this other one. Plenty of ways to succeed!
Be the same, but be different — like this.
Slip into costume, act the role, and do what you’re expected to do.
Then you’re seen. Then there are the smiles, the words, the invitations, contracts, and deals.
Things feel grand, safe, secure, and kind of simple. Do this and get that. Do this and be seen. This is how it is supposed to be done.
Don’t look down at the razor edge you’re walking.
One unexpected move — and it’s over.
Don’t look down. Keep moving, eyes ahead and head held high — like this.
Years ago, Jeanne Ray wrote a fantastic novel Calling Invisible Women. Ray is the mother of the incomparable Ann Patchett and creative powerhouse in her own right — did she just disappear with that careful definition?
In her story, women are rendered invisible — and no one notices that they are not visible because life flows pretty much the way that it always does. Supper is made, laundry is folded, the work gets done. Ultimately, the jig is up, realizations are had, and things go back to a better normal.
This is not a post about invisible women and hidden figures and things that go bump and startle you awake.
Everyone and anyone can go invisible, depending on the time, the place, and the observer.
There is only one antidote.
See yourself.
See yourself in your glowing, misshapen glory. Be earnest and be true. Be willing to let go of the ideas you cling to most fervently because they tell you who they are.
Learn for yourself.
Become visible to yourself.
Allow yourself to know what you like — and what you don’t. Stop choking down the carrots you despise because you’re setting a good example for the children. Stop the expected things that don’t matter to carve out time for the things that do — particularly when those things don’t make sense to the major people in your life, everything from sobriety to getting up at dawn to scribbling stories that scare you to death.
This could take awhile, particularly if you’ve been a genius at being invisible, about fitting in and being included because you fit.
To speed things along, you might see the invisible others who fill your own life: the checkout clerk, the toll collector, the person hefting that package up the front steps.
Look in their eyes.
Smile.
I see you — and when I see you, you can see me.
