Lately, I have been turning invisible.
It’s not intended. Think of a photograph, framed, hanging on
a lonely wall nobody looks at. Sunlight strikes its glass top in the morning, hurting
the eyes. Dust settles on it, lightly obscuring the image. And soon,
the person framed fades. Then someone looks up, squints, and wonders. But nobody
knows who the woman in the photograph is.
It started with my pregnancy. Tiptoeing around my round
belly. Instead of looking at me when we were talking, they would gush and touch my tummy. People would look at my baby
even before she was born! Conversations always gravitate around her. Gifts,
even on my birthday, are for the little one.
I didn’t mind, I was as ecstatic as they were.
When she came out, the frenzy of this new life, of nurturing
our new love took hold of me. I forgot everything except feeding her, holding
her. But I did notice that I no longer wore my earrings and bangles. I cut my hair
short so as not to be bothered with the task of tying it. I put away the bright
and fun clothes that once defined my taste in the different. Instead, I favored
earthy hues that could easily fade in the background.
I saw my friends less and less. I connected on social media
sporadically. These past months, while looking at pictures I took with my phone, not one of them shows even a shadow of me.
I also stopped writing for myself. Yes, I still write--pages
and pages of journal for my little girl. So she won’t forget me, how I am now. How
I want her to remember me. Maybe even how I want ME to remember me.
So I was catching on, figuring out that somehow, I am changing.
Maybe even fading.
I started to panic. I don’t want the fire in me to go away.
I want to be brave, free, colorful. I want to grow old gracefully, with grit and
spunk. I don’t want my little girl to see just a faded version of me.
A friend once said she is so sure I’ll be an awesome mom. I realize that to be an awesome mom, I must be an awesome woman, too—a woman who is kind to herself, who likes what she sees in the mirror, who is confident of her capabilities. It turns out, the past 3 years, I am not rising to my friend’s expectation. Hell, I’m not rising to my own expectations.
And I have been neglecting my loved ones' needs. This
saddens me so because when I was younger, I get my highs from making people I
love smile.
Now, I am just so tired. Even writing this is taking all the
energy I can muster. But this needs to come out. I need to acknowledge this
because I have been walking around with this heavy pounding in my head. I need
to write this so I can figure out what to do.
I don’t want to disappear.
