Silence(d)

I had a title for this post but Silence was not it. Now I cannot for the life of me remember what it was. Maybe it was Invisible? I should have wrote it down, damn it!

Yesterday was a weird sorta day. I struggled for words and ended up with a lengthy post here and a short one of random thoughts on my blogger one. I did finally manage to add another one thousand plus words to my fiction. Crappy words, but still words nonetheless.

It all started when I opened up my Google documents and was looking at what I had there. My assorted unfinished writing. But my eye kept drawing back to one file and I did not exactly remember writing and I was certain it was not part of my NaNo project from last year. After reading it through a couple of times I knew I was right in my assumption. It was something I wrote out of frustration. I do not remember the situation that triggered me writing it, but as I read through the piece it made me both sad and a bit angry that I felt like nothing had changed. That I was still in that same place.

It starts out with me saying how that ever since I was a little girl, earliest I can recall is about five, maybe six years old is that I felt I could not be heard. I was told all the time how children should be seen and not heard. If I was going to cry, then I’d get something to cry about. So basically, shut up and have no feelings. But I wanted to be heard, so somehow I guess I started talking louder and louder to try and make myself heard. I did not understand why the adults in my life refused to hear me. Then I would get asked why are you yelling, repeat being seen not heard. Rinse, repeat.

I found that cycle followed me and became habit. I had to yell to be heard, acknowledged. Only now I was older and it should not still be this way. So when I was asked why are you yelling I would make a joke of it and say “Oh, you know, it’s a Brooklyn thing. or “Oh it’s a New York thing, everyone yells in New York.”

But here I am, at forty eight  years old and I still am not heard. I still feel invisible. I still feel ignored. If I try to voice my opinion or offer advice, especially on something I have first hand knowledge or experience with I feel like others thinks I am stupid and do not know what I am talking about. Even if something turns out just like I said it would, it is like ‘how dare you have known that.’ I do not what pats on the back or anything but for fuck sakes I am not a stupid woman and I am not a child. I do know a few things.

Or when someone actually does ask you for advice on something but still act like they don’t believe you or you don’t know shit. I have gotten to the point where I see things and I have to hold myself back and say this is not your circus and these are not your fucking monkeys. And for as much as I long to speak my truth, I end up keeping my mouth shut because no one wants to hear it or believe it. So I stay silent, I stay invisible. I will stay in the shadows.

I wrote a brief piece on my other blog after reading that piece yesterday. I called it “Do You Ever”. I wanted to end the piece with a question that was something like “If I were to just disappear, would you miss me? Would you even notice?”  Because honestly that is how it feels sometimes, like if one was to walk away and disappear, would anyone even notice they were gone? Because that is what it feels like when you feel so invisible.

I have felt invisible my entire life. The only time I think I was visible is when I was being blamed for something I did not do or I was being abused by an ex boyfriend (in my teens). Can’t be too invisible if they smack you around.

I don’t know maybe it is all just something my head is making up because of old unhealed wounds that run very deep. Maybe I am so used to being silent and invisible I don’t know how to be anything else and it is all just automatic behavior. I don’t even know how to change it if I could. It is all I have ever really known.