I don’t know when…

 

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I started to feel unimportant.

It might have started when I was born. So few pictures document what my life was like during those first few years. I remember a father left. A mother drank. A brother touched…

It might have started young. Maybe it was during the days of waking up in the mornings, dressing myself, walking myself the 4 blocks to school and sitting alone at a cafeteria table eating cereal out of a box. Maybe it was during the long afternoons of sitting alone in my room watching endless hours of tv because I longed for the adults portrayed in the shows to magically appear and become my parents. Maybe it was during the summer days spent riding around my little town on a bike looking at all the pretty houses and wondering what was life like inside those walls…

Maybe it started in junior high school when I spent more hours in the day letting the boys put their hands down my pants than I did talking to my mom in a month. Maybe it was during my first “relationship” where I let an adult exploit my body and believed her when she said she loved me because isn’t this how love is shown? Maybe it was during the endless nights of waiting for the one parental figure the universe had given me to return home. Stinking of stale cigarettes and cheap booze only to fight violently with my brothers and then remind me that I wouldn’t amount to anything if I ended up like them.

(like her)

Maybe it started when I got a little older and started to think about the path my life was taking. Instead of looking ahead at my future I choose to look down at the money I had just stolen so that I could get high on Meth and get lost if only for a few hours (days, weeks, months, years).

Maybe after she died is when I started to feel unimportant.

Alone.

Really alone.

I can’t pinpoint when. I just know what is. I’ve spent the last forty years of my life feeling unimportant. Second best (third best, fourth best, forgotten). Never first in anyone’s mind (including my own). For almost  twenty-one months now I’ve fought tooth and nail, kicked and screamed, cried and cried and cried some more to feel important to myself. To put myself first. To acknowledge that I am somebody and I am somebody fierce. Some days I wake up and feel like the world is shining down on me and everything I touch is going to come alive because I am someone important. That what I do, what I say and the actions I put forth are because I love and am loved. Other days I feel like you could look right at me and not see me…

Not care.

It’s difficult allowing myself to feel whatever it is that I need to feel. It can change so rapidly and most times I am like a catcher in a ball game ready for whatever emotions are coming my way. To catch them and cradle them in the proverbial soft oiled glove until they pass. Other times I feel like I just got kicked in the stomach and want nothing more than to curl up in a small dark corner and forget my existence. It is in the times that I feel unneeded, unnecessary and unwanted that I turn inward to the voice of reason to help walk me through this portion of my journey…

I hear nothing.

Today is just today. Today the feelings of being no one outweigh the feelings of being someone. This journey isn’t just about triumph and losing weight to sculpt the body I deserve. Its about acknowledging that this life comes with it’s “Hell yes I did” moments along with the “pass me a fucking tissue I can’t stop crying” moments. It’s about understanding that there will be days I feel loved, powerful, life changing, important and days I won’t. It’s about not being afraid to wave my hands in the air to get the attention of someone and ask them…

“Can you see me?”