Being Invisible, Being Witnessed

August 15, 2023

Blogging

Maya Angelou is famously quoted as saying, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.”

There have been periods of my life where I spent weeks or even months feeling entirely forgettable. I participated in many things—work, socializing—but I harbored a nagging sensation that if I wasn’t there, no one would notice, and things would carry on just the same. Small opportunities to gain attention stand out to me now with the gift of hindsight: taking someone’s extra shift at work because I had availability, but all the while seeking the praise and attention that came along with this action.

I’ve spent hours in situations where I continually self-monitored my participation and kept my conversational contributions to the barest minimum. All the while, I had plenty to say, and it wasn’t of any less value than the others—I’m not talking about a chat between nuclear physicists trying to save the world here—but I didn’t feel able to open up. These weren’t only moments spent with strangers, although that was common, too. Groups of friends I knew fairly well would often evoke this feeling, as would family gatherings of my in-laws in recent years. In fact, throughout my life, I have continually wondered how to open up and make friends with people I observed around me, people with similar interests, a relatable sense of humor, and apparently fun personalities. I have spent far more time wondering how to become friends with a certain person than I did actually feeling included as someone’s friend.

As I get older—I’m only just about to turn 37, I am aware this is not all that old by many standards—I’m seeing more connections between moments like that from my past to decisions I made that led me to lose myself and my true personality. My long-term past relationship with a narcissist is the easiest example of this. And yet, time spent in therapy while actively pursuing self-love and understanding has shown me many other instances.

At some point, after my early childhood, where I was filled with gusto for climbing every tree and trying every challenge presented to me, I began the common practice of masking my natural self to fit into what I perceived as society’s expectations. (I want to point out that, especially as a child, it’s impossible to fully understand the expectations of others, but that did not stop me from trying.) In recent years, I have begun to work through these behaviors, notably where I try to assume what everyone else could be thinking or feeling and adapt my behavior to change or lessen certain things while ignoring whatever I wanted or felt myself.

This is clearly an ongoing process. I do not expect to solve the puzzle of myself and set it aside with a satisfied smile that I am now fully in control of everything I feel at all times. (That doesn’t even sound fun, to be honest.) But as I’m working to reshape my life and pursue my dream of being a published author, I’ve discovered many other disparate feelings between my heart’s desires and my chosen actions.

Today, I felt prompted to write something after several subsequent incidents have culminated to the point I can no longer ignore it. I’ve been noodling over this blog, my social media presence, and how much to share on the internet for months—it seems increasingly foolish to assume I could be a published author, achieving my dream, and yet have absolutely no social interaction whatsoever. (I also know too much about technology to assume I could remain anonymous behind any pen name for very long.) Today’s specific inspiration came from hearing a word used in a context I’d forgotten: bearing witness.

I say that I’d forgotten this because I certainly have heard it before, particularly in my reading and watching historical accounts of the Holocaust. But aside from this usage, I’d never considered the subject further. I spend so much time immersed in true crime that “witness” seems more like a noun than a verb.

Bearing witness. To what? By whom? It immediately stuck out when it appeared in a podcast episode of a show I was randomly sampling to expand my current lineup. This ties together many things I have contemplated over the last three months. I think it will allow me to (re) launch this blog after much deliberation about how and why I would want to.

Someone must have told me sometime in the past that I like attention, and I have thus put this concept in The Box Of Bad Things I Must Change. Because my first attempts to explain my recent feelings have run smack into this brick wall of self-rejection: wanting attention? Me? But that’s a bad thing. Why would I want that? Ugh, gross. Don’t look at me!

I’ve been working on this concept for a couple of weeks—I want attention, why is that, can I change it, where does it come from, and so forth. I’ve been considering it from the angle of my inner child needing validation to heal wounds I picked up along life’s journey. But this idea of bearing witness resonates so much more deeply than the idea that I didn’t get enough positive reinforcement at key points in the past.

Bearing witness is, in fact, something I continually do for others without questioning the value or my motivation for doing so. I like to absorb the stories of others, specifically to dig into their interests even if they are different than mine, even if I have never so much as heard of it and have no plan to pick up the hobby for myself. (I often cite this as one reason I enjoy writing, where I can build characters with depths of experience beyond my own because I can reflect on all the stories of others I have heard or read). A quick example of this that comes to mind would probably be homebrewing beer. I have drank copious types of craft beer since moving to Colorado, and can tell you in long-winded detail about what I like and don’t like and how my tastes have changed. But the idea of making my own has never appealed to me in over a decade of conversations about it. Still, if you are Really Into This Thing, I want to hear about it. I love those passionate topics where someone is gushing about something they love. Tell me about types of yeast and how to enhance flavor profiles. Gush about your successful experiments. I will pay attention and ask questions. Every situation is a puzzle I’ve never considered; every story is a path through the maze, and I follow with curious attention.

It makes me happy to be an outlet for these subjects if someone has a burning need to talk about something they did and is struggling to find an audience. I am your audience. I always thought it was because of writing—it’s all character research, I often said—but it’s something deeper. It’s the idea that sharing your story with others makes your existence more transcendent. You live on in the hearts of people who knew you. I’ve been bearing witness in a sense that I never even considered!

This realization comes to me at a time when I have been considering my comfort level with attention versus the desire to remain invisible and forgettable. This concept has so many examples wrapped up in my life experiences that I could write far too many words only on that part. As a cisgender woman who presents as female, the idea of attention is a heavily loaded concept—years spent as one of the only women in a classroom or workplace left me incredibly aware of the kind of attention that makes me uncomfortable. Comments about our appearance are a part of the world we navigate, and women face them from so many angles. As recently as 2019, or maybe even pre-pandemic 2020, I had a male coworker randomly fixate on my clothing when the small team gathered for an in-person meeting. I was, and still am, glad that I called him on the comment and pointed out that it wasn’t appropriate. But I haven’t forgotten the incident. It sits adjacent to the teasing about my outfit that I experienced on a school bus, nestled beside the comments that came if I wore my hair up instead of down, wore makeup, or left my face bare. Glasses or no glasses. Teachers and people in a position of authority are also on this list of memories.

Unfortunately, my life has given me countless reasons to prefer being unnoticed, even as the feeling rankles in my heart. I am no less worthy of attention than anyone else, but the word still feels taboo even if I write it here at nearly-37-years-old.

I know this is an unhappy feeling, but the idea of bearing witness has helped me bring it into focus. I’d almost given up hoping to clarify it beyond the experiences I touched on above, which can help explain why I struggle to be noticed, as if every gaze upon me is the Eye of Sauron. I want to witness the lives of others and have my life be witnessed in return. I don’t think I am particularly special among the ranks of humanity, nor do I consider humanity, in general, to be the exemplary species it ought to be. But my life is mine. My experiences are not always unique, but my perception is. Even the five senses many people take for granted are perceived differently by people in our circles—color blindness is an example, but have you heard of synesthesia? Perceiving more than the usual senses allow? Tangling them together into new experiences altogether? It fascinates me. Maybe there’s a story I can hear to help me imagine this more clearly than I can now, but I’ll never truly understand it any more than I can understand how a bird sees ultraviolet light.

But being visible is frightening. When people notice you, they can lash out with snide comments or suggestive questions (have you tried this or that treatment? I see you have a giant zit on your face!), things that press the replay button on a lifetime of uncomfortable interactions, or even traumatic experiences.

And yet to live life in a constant state of invisibility, creating no ripples in the water, and never participating in group conversations goes against the nature of human existence. We started in tribes, banding together for survival. We crave connection. I am no different, despite years spent convincing myself otherwise.

So, here I am, posting on a blog on the internet. It’s not closed to the public, hidden from random passersby and their sniping comments. It’s here because I am here, among the rest of you. I’m not going to groom my posts into a supposedly-flawless state of imagined perfection simply because dozens of random men have popped up to play the devil’s advocate and ask “what about” questions. I’m going to post with my voice and stop editing myself to maintain peace and harmony. I’m done doing the emotional labor to guess how everyone will react to me, thereby lessening the disruption I cause.

I’m going to be myself. If you want to witness my experiences, stick around. I’m making big waves in my life, and maybe they’ll never reach anyone else’s shore. But they’re powerful here in my pool.