Seen

When an author introduces magical or supernatural power of invisibility, the author wrestles with the logistics of it.  How does it turn on and off, or does it?  Does the character have to wear makeup to be seen?  Does the character have to strip off all of their clothes to not be seen?  How about items that are held?  Does the situation require an object of invisibility such as Harry Potter’s cloak or Wonder Woman’s airplane? But then can the characters see the invisible object?  Or through it? or within it?  How does Wonder Woman know what the gauge’s read?  Perhaps authors will opt for highly sophisticated camouflage instead of invisibility, like a plane whose surface is made of tiny screens designed to project images that match its surroundings.

I pondering the logistics, and the choice between invisibility versus camouflage when considering my on again/off again relationship with being seen.

As an adolescent, I was a slightly overweight, permed hair, conspicuously heavy-chested, braces and glasses-wearing geek. Before high-school, I assented that I would never fit in – neither camouflaged or invisible.  I was no cheerleader, no eagle scout, no class president, no athlete, no child prodigy to grace the pages of the small town newspaper. Nor was I able to completely enshroud myself and slink through the years mysteriously veiled and eventually forgotten.  Instead, I was seen when I was a child, a teen.  I did my best to tinker and tailor how I was seen, but resources were limited, so I mostly just opted for vibrant but peculiar.

I was named for the European Robin:

With no hope of being an American Robin:

So ended up more this chubby, small, Australian Pink Robin:

As far as outcomes go, it could have been much worse.  Short, chubby, and charming has its benefits.

I never dated, but virtually everyone in school smiled with me.

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(photo by Steve Lenz)

Then I went from rural Indiana, to Indiana University, Bloomington.  Not a large town, but with 6500 fellow freshmen, it did not take long for me to realize that I could fit in.

And almost instantaneously I faded away.  I gained weight, started wearing earth-toned clothing and birkenstock sandals, and shuffled completely unseen around campus.  I was only notable when an instructor, having read something I’d written, returned a graded paper; their eyes would open as if I just appeared before their eyes.  As a student, I stood out.  As a person, I hardly existed.
When I was 20, I took a theatre class with an vibrant classmate who re-awakened in me an interest and revived a confidence in performing.

My junior year of school, at his prodding, I joined the Indiana University Speech Team and a transformation began.  The first people to see me were the small cohort of fellow teammates.  By the end of the season, standing on stage to receive a second place national trophy for after-dinner speaking,  I had hundreds of beholders.  It felt remarkably similar to giving my high school graduation speech.  I was observed, but as an other, an anomaly.  “Look at the overweight, frizzy haired girl that made me laugh out loud!  Look quickly before she disappears!”

The summer after I turned 21, I had my first breast-reduction surgery.  In the months that followed, I picked up smoking, dropped 50 or so pounds, cut my hair short, dyed its natural dull auburn to a burnished red, and starting wearing makeup.  At speech competitions I wore dressy skirt suits with three inch heels.
For the first time in my life, I looked good.  Striking even.  I could compete with real girls:  granted not the cheerleading, athletic kind, but the sassy, smoking behind the bleachers gals.  And all of the guys I knew in my now growing circle of speech friends told me so repeatedly. An incipient trust in my own attractiveness sprouted.

Unfortunately, not one of these men were actually interested in my newly furbished sexual wares. Over the next two years, one by one, each of the nearly dozen men I chose to be the object of my adoration came kicking and screaming out of the closet.  I lost my virginity, I lost my heart several times, but no one fell in love with me.  By the age of 22, I fervently believed that every man who would consider dating me was furtively gay, and God had cruelly put me on the earth to help them learn to embrace their true selves after a date or two with me.  This skewed data impacted my ability to see myself.  It was as if looking at my own hand, I could see it fading into the background.  So I dressed it up with more makeup and a gaudier persona.  Included in this era were a few failed attempts to connect with authentically straight men.  I recognize now that I self-selected incurious, depthless, insensitive varietals who had me reeling back to the comfort of the homosexual community almost immediately.

As I was convinced that all men were homosexuals or troglodytes, and because I already spent a great deal of time drinking, smoking and dancing in gay bars, I decided to date women.   For this, I was wholly unprepared.  For the first time, I found a class of people with whom I could share both my emotional and my physical inner self.  I found myself wholly stripped.  Naturally, I panicked, broke up with a pleasing and practical woman after just a handful of weeks and dropped out of the community altogether.

The summer after I turned 23.  I met a young man – 20 or so to my wise and worn 23 – with whom I did not fall in love – but who was undeniably straight, sexually attentive and gratifying. This brief summer fling unveiled me. It seems simple, but Matt made me feel that I was worthy of this attention.  I developed a fledging trust in my skill as a paramour.

The next era I will skim over (for the sake of my mother who is reading this),  but years of yearning and questing for love followed.  I moved to the Bay Area and found myself largely concealed by the city of San Francisco.  I was one of hundreds of thousands of souls scurrying from shadow to shadow through the fog.  I gained and lost weight and flitted in and out of sight.

It was at work where I became recognized and known, and not surprisingly it was at work where I met most of the people I dated, including and eventually my husband.

I started this post about invisibility, and it seems I have strayed considerably, but what stands out for me as I write this is that I have felt most seen, most voluntarily visible when thin.  As the pounds slip away, my shoulders would press back, my chin tilt up, I would look more confidently into people’s eyes, my quick shuffle saunter more, and on the whole, I would feel more sexually desirable.  This should be no great revelation; societally, the scales are inexplicably (and ironically) tilted in favor of slimness.
This would go a very long way toward explaining why for over a decade, I have felt as if I was fading away.  I had a few standout years, immediately preceding my wedding (working out fanatically to fit into a size six wedding gown) and through my initial years as a technical trainer (where I would perform and glow in the sensation of the eyes on me).

Then eleven years ago, almost accidentally, we got pregnant with Eliot.  I gained weight wantonly.  OBs, reading materials, midwives, checkout line magazines and grandmothers suggest that you gain about 35 pounds during the pregnancy.  I accomplished that in the first 4 months.  By the time that I gave birth, I topped the scales at 185 pounds, exceeding my prior top weight by almost 15 pounds (more than the infant, the placenta and amniotic fluid).  I had completely disappeared.

Parenthood, paradoxically, affects your visibility.  Whether this happens early during pregnancy as it did with me, or whether it waits until you’re tripping after a runaway toddler, depends considerably on your self-confidence.

The other evening out running, I saw this woman walking toward me on the path with a tiny, ample-eyed infant tethered to her chest.  I, being a middle-aged women from the Midwest with an almost unhealthy need to smile at people as they cross my path, brightened at the fresh, uncontrolled expressions coming from this little creature. I grinned and glanced up at the young, attractive mother.  I don’t think she realized yet, because she still drew everyone’s attention, that she was no longer the centerpiece, the piece of art; now she was merely the vessel or frame, still there, but seen almost as an afterthought.

At the age of 44, I grappled with gallbladder disease and pancreatitis.  As a result, I dropped the last of my baby (ok, now preschooler) weight and slipped into jeans I had not worn since my single years in San Francisco.  I was thin again, but unexpectedly, still completely unseen.  Had I been so eroded by marriage and parenthood, grown so comfortable camouflaging myself to match the backdrop of my life, that there was little left to see?

Originally because of the gallbladder and pancreatitis, I started tallying everything I ate with a food diary app on my phone.  My intention had been to monitor my fat intake as well as note what would trigger digestive distress.  Over the last year and a half, I have maintained the rigor of recording everything.  I hardly glance at my fat values now.  Instead, I regulate my caloric intake and expenditure with fierce control.  One of my treasured friends and work colleagues had/has a similar ritual.  For her, she records everything she consumes as part of her post-bariatric surgery maintenance plan.  She achieved a profound accomplishment – losing over 100 pounds and keeping it off for two years.  Fortunately, for me, she has supported me completely when others have utterly dismissed this need for caloric management.  We are sisters in our food obsession.  If I slip, the consequences are less physically severe than if she slips, but mentally, we are both at the mercy of our self-perceptions.

Sometime around my 45th birthday, I began to buy skinny jeans and fitted tee-shirts.  On the advice of a fashionable young co-worker I changed my hair style to something more striking and modern. Two years of weekly pilates have given me confidence in the strength of my body.  I purchased my first ever bikini, not a string one, granted, but with some mid-drift left bare for wearing in our hot-tub.  This summer I wore shorts that were shorter than anything I may have ever worn before.  And when I go running, I hesitate less to wear fitted yoga capris.

I believe it is possible that one reason why the depression peaked – started bubbling over – was my inability to deal with cognitive dissonance of feeling seen again and yet wondering exactly who it was that was being seen.  My shell was visible by my core had faded away.  I have been walking around wearing a Robin suit.