You’re Not Invisible

Hey, guys. So… I suppose with a new season comes another heart-to-heart. A heart-to-heart that, for once, I actually do want to post. Which is… rare. I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to write a heart-to-heart and just…. never posted it.

But honestly… these few days have been rough. I’ll be honest with y’all. Moving houses, trying to move on with a friend who’s ghosted me for the past four months, and just a lot of stuff in general… But I really do think that moving houses and the sort-of-but-also-not-quite-since-there-really-isn’t-any-closure-with-ghosting friendship breakup has honestly been the two main things that have just been haunting me this summer.

And I had a moment this afternoon where it felt like I’d just flashed back in time. And no, not literally of course. But I truly don’t know how else to describe it.

So…. might as well start this heart-to-heart.

Welcome back. Hope you won’t mind a fair bit of rambling.

~ ~ ~

i’ve never mentioned this, really. but for most of my life i have felt largely….. invisible.

i suppose this comes from a lot of reasons. my first language is english. i grew up as a homeschooled kid, according to the american curriculum, in the middle of a ginormous city in China. growing up, i always felt very much invisible in Chinese society. not quite ‘society’, but i don’t know how else to say it.

i am normally a very bright, very vibrant, chaotic person. but whenever i was in real life… i felt invisible. like no one ever really saw or heard me. as in, saw me for who i really was. even now, whenever i’m with other Chinese people, be them adults or my own age, i’m pretty much just the shy girl who’s standing by the side in the shadows, awkwardly waiting for someone to see me while trying to decipher Chinese, a language i should understand, but is nothing more than a jumble of sounds in my head i have to desperately scrabble for and piece together.

this has been what it has been like, whenever i’m outside, for a lot of my life.

but when i started writing…. writing was where i became someone else. where i became me. where i became someone more than just the shy girl who can’t speak Chinese. i started to learn so much more about myself. i grew more confident. started to figure who i really was. writing was a place where no one could stamp down on my creativity and i could be me.

not the shy girl who couldn’t speak Chinese.

not the person who, in my own thoughts, never lived up to expectation.

just me.

i think i have grown since then. and a part of me would like to think that that was it. that i’m now this perfectly confident person.

that can’t be farther from the truth.

and this afternoon, my cousin and aunt came over. it is a very long story, and i can’t tell you too much. but long story short, we’re moving house, and they are moving into this house to live with my grandma while we head back to the apartment we have uhh abandoned for three years…… i know, confusing.

but while they were here… it honestly felt like i’d flashed back into time. like i was just standing in the corner, in the shadows, blinking hard as i watched them move in. as i watched them ‘weed out’ and ‘tidy up’ the wild garden that’s sprung up in the garden in the past two months. the wilderness and weeds that i find beautiful, that i walk past every single morning, silently cheering on every single weed/vine to grow higher and higher just because i want to see what the ugly orange-painted fence would look like covered completely in vines and weeds.

and while i watched them… it was like i became that girl again. that same girl, two years ago. the one who didn’t know what to say or speak – the one who, since she couldn’t really speak Chinese that well, couldn’t speak. it was like i became invisible all over again.

how did this all end?

well… i went upstairs. closed the door. played “The Parting Glass” on my tin whistle till they left.

and…………. that was it.

not dramatic. not anything like a book. but life isn’t anything like a book, perfectly linear with everything wrapped up in neat little bows, i’ve found.

but i want to say this to my fellow quiet dreamers.

if you have ever felt invisible, like no one hears your voice, like you cannot speak…

you are not alone.

and believe me. you are not invisible.

not in the least bit.

i see you. i have been there. still go there sometimes. but you are not invisible.

you do have a voice inside you. you do have words, music, art – stories – inside of you. and if they are begging to come out, let them.

write them down. paint them out. sing it loud. whatever you need to do.

and some of you may think there’s no point. that you’re just invisible and no one will want to listen. i have thought the same. but i also know there are stories inside you that want to come out. don’t bottle them up. because i guarantee, there will be people who will listen.

like me. two years ago, i was a ten-year-old who was writing out this idea demanding to be let out, never really thinking i’d actually finish Enchantria. but i did. i published it. i became an author. met other writers. i have readers. people who have read my stories and who have listened.

and even if you choose not to publish anything, write the stories for you.

just you.

let them out. see what they have to say. see what you have to learn about yourself. give yourself time. say, two years. to just write the stories out. no judgement. and see what stories you have inside you. doesn’t have to be in the form of writing. could be art, music, acting, anything.

just do it. be you. and honestly, that is all you really need to do to start.

~ ~ ~

So… yeah. Hope I didn’t ramble too much in this heart-to-hearts. And know that whatever comes, you are not invisible and you do have a story to tell. You just have to go and tell it.

Till next time,

-Isabelle