Invisible

 

Now that I’ve disappeared into the ethos of central mass, the sisters and brothers can dig even deeper into their illusions. I’m a piece of glass they don’t have to see. They’ve chosen their made-up memories of perfection now that there is no one to stand for what was true and honest.

Now that I’m invisible, their holidays are easier. Their pretend technicolor, three-dimensional, artificial world is stitched together by story and fable, by hopes and toxic positivity. Sisters don’t need to make space or time for this transparent version of me. This new me that they’ve never met has no relation to the version they created out of desperation, denial and shame. I am perfectly carved out and removed, cropped from the family picture. Left alone to become my transparent, true self. Something only possible far away from the clan that insists we were something we never even tried to be. 

Now that they can’t see me, I see them ever more clearly. Their pain and their hurts so clearly rendered for the world to see but seemingly missing from their own perspectives. Is that blind optimism I see or something closer to delusion? Without their shadows, I am left to reflect that pain back at the empty spaces where sisters and brothers once stood. An echo of who they were. 

Now that I’m invisible, I can see new, colorful, opaque parts of myself. They’re scattered all around my life, some were hiding from view for nearly fifty years, only to be discovered sitting there, right in front of me the whole time. A pair of reading glasses left on my head or the car keys that were hanging where they belonged. Little piles of me in the corner of bedrooms and buried in closets. All those personalities and preferences left to collect dust so many years ago that I keep uncovering and wiping clean, deciding which ones to take, which to leave, and which to burn to ash. 

Now that I’m invisible, I can finally shed the weight of who I was and embrace the life I’ve painstakingly pieced together. A life filled with people who miss me when I’m not there. People who love me enough to tell me the truth or to forgive, even when it stings. People who know the real stories and love me anyway.