Claiming My Voice: From the darkness, the light emerges.

I don’t know what year or even what era it was when we all started talking about “being seen” but I do recall thinking it was a pretty cool concept. Like so many things, I think we have taken it over the top and if I hear “I see you” from one more person who clearly uses this phrase as a part of their every day conversation but doesn’t really mean it, I’m gonna barf! But I digress…

I remember long nights of deep conversations with friends. Sometimes they were fueled by alcohol and drugs…sometimes they were simply fueled by youth and emotion. We’d sit knee to knee, eye to eye spilling out our fears and hopes. We were trying so earnestly to be seen. I know that now. I didn’t know that then. Some nights (as they turned into early mornings), we’d try to pull ourselves away unsuccessfully because we knew we’d failed to find the connection we were so desperate to create…One more minute! One more hour! Hear me! Please hear me! I’m all alone in here!

It took a few years but I did discover that the real way to be seen is balance. No one is going to see me if I don’t open myself to seeing them. It has to be a two way street. Those talks in days of ol’ were usually far too selfish for either of us to see the other. We were to busy trying to be seen to see the other. Once I truly started to listen, I started to connect at a new level and they were open to hearing me. I now have a handful of beloved friends that we connect at a heart level.

But here is the interesting thing to me: Even though I want to be seen and I want to see others, I am still a bit shocked sometimes when someone really sees me. I’m taken aback and usually set to tears when I’m in pain and someone sees it, especially if I don’t hit them over the head with it. It’s easy to get attention when I’m blubbering publicly and making a scene. It feels so much different for someone to put their hand on my shoulder or send me a smile when I’m sitting quietly in the corner trying not to be a bother. But rest assured, if I am sitting in a corner, even that is a cry for help and those that love me know that and that is what moves me. That they have been paying attention. That they are paying attention.

So my job now? My job now is to not shut them out (because I sometimes want to – actually that was the point of this post when I started to write…That as much as I feel like I want to be seen, I have a fuck-ton of armor I try to put on because it gives me a false sense of security…and I LOVE LOVE LOVE those folks who are not fooled by my armor). My job now is to take off my armor with those who love me and not make them try to see past it. And my job is to pay attention to those I love. Pay attention enough to see them. See them when they are taking off their armor. See them when they are not but they want to, and maybe they just can’t, you know…like when the zipper is on the back of your dress, and its just out of reach, and you just need a hand.

Just for today, I will tell the truth. Just for today, I will seek the truth in others.