Invisibility is Not a Superpower

I remember the days before motherhood when I believed that invisibility would be the superpower that I would choose if I were given the option to choose any superpower at all.  As an introvert who is often exhausted by large groups of people, the idea of disappearing at will has always appealed to me. In fact, I often joke that having Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak at large parties would be a godsend as my personality tends to send me into a lone corner avoiding conversation at all cost.

Motherhood has been a great joy for me and I am so grateful for my three wonderful children and all that they have taught me. However, my time as a wife and mother has also been a study in invisibility. I have lost myself inside the busyness and the role of motherhood.

My children and my husband love me- I know this to be true. But, so much of my daily actions are unnoticed. I wake early to clean, make breakfast and help the kids get ready for school, go to work for the day and come home to run kids to activities, clean, make dinner, run errands and the myriad of other duties for the day.  It is never-ending and exhausting.  I don’t believe that my husband or children have any idea just how much I do for them and for the household—and I imagine that I have some responsibility for that fact, as well.

 I have gratefully given up so much of myself for my family and wouldn’t change that for anything. I love my children and would do anything to help them to be healthy and happy. However, it would be nice to just be seen—to truly be seen for who I am as a person and not simply for the contributions and sacrifices that I make for this family.

There are times that I will speak (ahem, holler) to my family to help me with something—cleaning, cooking, etc.  Many times no one will answer me. In fact, some days it seemed that most everything that I have said within the walls of my own home fall on deaf ears, whether it be a request for help, an opinion or an ‘I love you’.  I have begun to wonder if I am, indeed, invisible.

In fact, this invisibility seems pervasive and happens outside of the home, as well. As a mother, I think the world tends to marginalize me as simple and void of important opinion. In a college course that I once took, the teacher asked us all to say what the most important thing we had ever done was. I immediately answered that being a loving mother would be the most important job of my life. My reply was greeted with laughter from around the room. The room, full of mostly single men, seemed to find my response hilarious—disbelieving that this would be a job of pride for me.

And so,  living inside of this invisibility for the fifteen years that I have been a mother has made me realize that invisibility-- the idea of which has fascinated me for years-- is not the superpower that I imagined it to be. It is painful and lonely. There are days when I wonder if anyone would notice if I was missing from the world or if only the pile of unwashed dishes and the empty cupboards would be noticed.

I no longer know who I am without a litany of daily tasks before me. I am lost somewhere underneath the never-ending to-do list, the invisibility of a strong-willed and opinionated woman lost underneath an anonymous life of repetitive motions, unseen by the words at-large.

I am in here, underneath this cloak of namelessness. I am crying out to be seen. I renounce the “superpower” of invisibility and instead choose the power of voice. I am ready to be heard.

Inside

This week I met a couple of people in person that I had communicated with for a long time via Facebook/text, etc. 

Meeting someone for the first time in person is very hard for me. I'm incredibly scared of rejection. 

If I had the courage to speak my heart to those that I meet for this first time, this is what I would say-

I know that I am not society's idea of a beautiful woman. I have strong features and care little about my physical appearance. Please love me anyway. 

I know that I am overweight. I've struggled with my weight for years. I have PCOS which makes gaining easy and losing slow. I am highly sensitive and often drown myself in food and drink to cover the pain even though I loathe myself for doing so. Please befriend me anyway. 

I have no fashion sense. I am most comfortable in my hippie skirts, bare feet and threadbare Beatles t-shirts. My hair is often a mess and sometimes I don't even bother to match my clothes. Clothing seems so unimportant to me but I know how important these things can be to others. Please get to know who I am inside. 

I can be socially awkward. I feel the pain of the world in my heart and often want to talk about deep, deep issues. I hate the small talk that permeates our society- I want to know the real you, not about the weather and such. I know this isn't the social norm. Please hear me out anyway. 

I can be hard to get to know. I have been burned badly, especially by women. It can take a year or more before I let you all the way in. I am the most loyal person you will ever know. Please give me the time to trust you.

My outsides will never match what it shown on a magazine cover. Never. I could probably handle you rejecting my physicality. However- I, like everyone else, am really the person that is inside me. Please give that person a chance.

You Are Perfect Just as You Are

I've never been society's idea of beautiful. I've always had a propensity to be a bit chubby and have strong facial features. 

When I was a child everyone would see my sister, blonde and lithe, and them me, chubby and awkward, standing at her side and would compliment her on how pretty she was. Then, as an afterthought, would compliment me on my intelligence.

I wanted so badly to be pretty. I spent years dieting, dyeing my hair and trying different makeup techniques to make my nose appear smaller. However, I could never change the image in the mirror much.

It wasn't long before I stopped focusing my energy on my outsides and began trying to refine my insides. I've spent much of my life focusing all of my time reading, learning, working and volunteering to make myself, and hopefully the world, better.

My intelligence and kindness have opened many doors for me. As an introvert, I spend many hours inside my head and quietly reading and those hours of thoughts make me continually into a more mindful person. My goals of weight-loss and outer perfection have been replaced with a single boas-- to be a better person with each and every year that passes. 

I still struggle with self-worth and avoid looking at myself in the mirror at times.  But, I'm pretty confident about the person that I am inside-- kind, compassionate, well-read, always learning. I hope that I continue to grow-- I know that I still have much inner work to do. 

So, I guess what I'm saying is that I'm grateful for not being born physically beautiful. It has made me a better person. I need to remind myself of this when I scoff at my image in the mirror.

You were born perfectly and exactly the way the you were meant to be, Loves. I'm so glad that I was made the way I am and that you were made the way that you are. 

Shine your light, the world only has one you. 

Introversion and the Crux of Invisibility

I was at the grocery store, rushing through my list and hoping desperately not to run into anyone that I know- my typical introvert shopping trip. As I rounded the corner into the wine aisle(ahem- my favorite aisle) I felt a pair of eyes on me. I looked to my right and there was a sweet little girl with whom I had worked with during my Fridays volunteering in my youngest daughter’s classroom.

She was alternately hiding behind her big sister’s legs and peeking out to grin at me in hopes that I would notice her. I walked over and said hello, her face opening up into a huge grin before disappearing again. I said my goodbye and continued to walk down the aisle and before turning into the next aisle, peeked behind me. She was still standing there grinning back at me as though the best thing in the whole world was to be remembered and noticed by her friend’s Mama. It lit up my heart.

I felt a deep kinship with this young girl, unsure whether to hide or be seen. As an introvert, much of my life has been focused on the act of invisibility so that I could shrink carefully back into the comfortable confines of my mind. However, there have been many times that the same coveted, comfortable invisibility has become a clawing, gnawing ache in my belly as I drifted into deep loneliness. There were many years of finding my way, vacillating between periods of deep quiet, interrupted by staccato bursts of being desperate to be heard at any cost.

I am now at a place where I can weather social situations and need much less time to recover in the cocoon of my home after. Yet, much of my life was exactly like the picture of the little girl in the grocery store- utterly conflicted between hiding and being seen. 

This is the crux of introversion- a desperate need for invisibility, which conflicts with the very human need to be heard and understood.

I would like to hope that with the recent influx of publications and research on introversion, that young people will find a comfortable ground with their introversion at a younger age than I did.

May we each find peace with exposing ourselves from underneath our precious cloaks of invisibility and find a group of people that will respect our need for privacy, but ease the ache of loneliness that seems pervasive among us.