The Invisible Woman...
Invisibility is usually a superpower in movies. The hero has the ability to become invisible so they can thwart evil. I am often invisible, but it definitely isn't super.
I notice my invisibility most often when I am walking through the mall or down the sidewalk. When people walk toward me in the pedestrian version of "Chicken", 100% of the time I am the one to step aside. The other person rarely even flinches as they continue to walk into my path. It is as though they hadn't even seen me walking toward them. As I walk away, I often wonder why that is. What is it about me that makes people automatically assume that I will be the one to move. Or, better yet, what is it about me that makes me acquiesce every single time?
Invisibility isn't a new thing for me. I realized I was invisible when I was a child. Each year when it was time for the class program, I wished with all my might that it would finally be the year I was chosen for a speaking part. It never happened. The speaking parts when to the same handful of kids every year. The outgoing kids. The popular kids. I assumed the teachers just preferred those kids the same way everyone else did. Those popular kids received favor in friendships, in dating, and in most every other opportunity. But I wasn't one of those kids. I was invisible. The teachers never saw me with my hand in the air. The opportunity to stand in front of the microphone is never given to invisible people. Invisibility didn't end in elementary school.
There were people who could see me. There was a second grade teacher who saw my kindness and quiet hard work. She usually put me in charge of helping the boy in our class who struggled to keep up with the lessons I had long-since finished. Or my sixth grade teacher. I was smart and my sixth grade teacher inspired me to be more confident, more sure of my thoughts and abilities. She saw past the outgoing, popular kids and saw that I had potential, too. My band teacher started to see me as something other than invisible when I got to my freshman year and excelled at my instrument. It was hard to miss that I was the only one in the band playing the right notes.
I used to have recurring dreams about tornadoes. Tornadoes must have been my fear, right? But, I realized in adulthood that the dreams weren't really about the tornadoes -- they were about my invisibility. I was the one who spotted the tornadoes and I spent the entire dream trying to get others to take shelter. However, no one ever listened to me in the dreams, no matter how hard I pleaded with them. I was invisible to them. My words didn't matter because they weren't even listening. Once I figured out that the dreams were a picture of my feelings, the tornadoes stopped haunting my sleep.
My personality, according to the fine folks at Myers-Briggs, is INTJ. I'm an introvert by nature, which means that I spend a lot of time quietly observing and listening before I jump into the conversation. Observation is participation in my mind. Because of this, I often forget that you have to open your mouth sometimes or people will forget you are still in the room. Sometimes when I do decide to add my thoughts to the conversation (after much mental deliberation to decide if it is worth anyone's time for me to open my mouth) I will get interrupted by an extrovert who doesn't realize how much mental effort it took to get my mouth open. This usually ends with me feeling like I should have just stayed invisible, because (obviously) no one else noticed I was entering the verbal fray.
Unfortunately, the rest of the letters in my INTJ mean that I am naturally bent toward thinking that I'm right most of the time. After all that observing, listening, and pondering, I usually believe wholeheartedly that I've come up with the most efficient/effective plan for the situation at hand. It is very frustrating to share my opinion, skills, plans, ideas, solutions with the group, only to have the group instead choose an idea from someone who is more of an obvious leader (usually an extrovert). Or to pour tons of time, talent, and effort into a solution or idea only have it go completely unnoticed.
Maybe I should just embrace my invisibility. Life would be a lot less work if I would just embrace the fact that no one is paying attention anyway. Just think of all the extra time I would have to read, do art, or write this blog. Or maybe I should just become more obnoxious. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, after all.
I notice my invisibility most often when I am walking through the mall or down the sidewalk. When people walk toward me in the pedestrian version of "Chicken", 100% of the time I am the one to step aside. The other person rarely even flinches as they continue to walk into my path. It is as though they hadn't even seen me walking toward them. As I walk away, I often wonder why that is. What is it about me that makes people automatically assume that I will be the one to move. Or, better yet, what is it about me that makes me acquiesce every single time?
Invisibility isn't a new thing for me. I realized I was invisible when I was a child. Each year when it was time for the class program, I wished with all my might that it would finally be the year I was chosen for a speaking part. It never happened. The speaking parts when to the same handful of kids every year. The outgoing kids. The popular kids. I assumed the teachers just preferred those kids the same way everyone else did. Those popular kids received favor in friendships, in dating, and in most every other opportunity. But I wasn't one of those kids. I was invisible. The teachers never saw me with my hand in the air. The opportunity to stand in front of the microphone is never given to invisible people. Invisibility didn't end in elementary school.
There were people who could see me. There was a second grade teacher who saw my kindness and quiet hard work. She usually put me in charge of helping the boy in our class who struggled to keep up with the lessons I had long-since finished. Or my sixth grade teacher. I was smart and my sixth grade teacher inspired me to be more confident, more sure of my thoughts and abilities. She saw past the outgoing, popular kids and saw that I had potential, too. My band teacher started to see me as something other than invisible when I got to my freshman year and excelled at my instrument. It was hard to miss that I was the only one in the band playing the right notes.
I used to have recurring dreams about tornadoes. Tornadoes must have been my fear, right? But, I realized in adulthood that the dreams weren't really about the tornadoes -- they were about my invisibility. I was the one who spotted the tornadoes and I spent the entire dream trying to get others to take shelter. However, no one ever listened to me in the dreams, no matter how hard I pleaded with them. I was invisible to them. My words didn't matter because they weren't even listening. Once I figured out that the dreams were a picture of my feelings, the tornadoes stopped haunting my sleep.
My personality, according to the fine folks at Myers-Briggs, is INTJ. I'm an introvert by nature, which means that I spend a lot of time quietly observing and listening before I jump into the conversation. Observation is participation in my mind. Because of this, I often forget that you have to open your mouth sometimes or people will forget you are still in the room. Sometimes when I do decide to add my thoughts to the conversation (after much mental deliberation to decide if it is worth anyone's time for me to open my mouth) I will get interrupted by an extrovert who doesn't realize how much mental effort it took to get my mouth open. This usually ends with me feeling like I should have just stayed invisible, because (obviously) no one else noticed I was entering the verbal fray.
Unfortunately, the rest of the letters in my INTJ mean that I am naturally bent toward thinking that I'm right most of the time. After all that observing, listening, and pondering, I usually believe wholeheartedly that I've come up with the most efficient/effective plan for the situation at hand. It is very frustrating to share my opinion, skills, plans, ideas, solutions with the group, only to have the group instead choose an idea from someone who is more of an obvious leader (usually an extrovert). Or to pour tons of time, talent, and effort into a solution or idea only have it go completely unnoticed.
Maybe I should just embrace my invisibility. Life would be a lot less work if I would just embrace the fact that no one is paying attention anyway. Just think of all the extra time I would have to read, do art, or write this blog. Or maybe I should just become more obnoxious. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, after all.
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