This piece has been sitting in my drafts since June 2023. I don’t remember why I never shared it, but I am choosing to share it now, with no editing or revisions.
When I was a teenager, I wanted to be invisible.
I’m so glad I’m not.
I was having a real tough time a few weeks ago. I wasn’t sleeping, and the panic attacks were bad, and it seemed like nothing I could do was helping.
I didn’t know what to do so I picked up the phone and called my best friend.
“I just feel like I have had no control over my own life for my entire life. Every choice I have made was for someone else.”
I went over everything.
Everything.
When I was 21 years old, my entire life changed in the space of one night.
There’s this line in my mind when I reflect on my own life. There’s before, and then there’s after.
Before, I was navigating through some traumatic experiences and dealing with undiagnosed post traumatic stress disorder and undiagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I was terrified of everything and everyone. The dreams I’d once had as a little girl, of being involved and present and connected, were pretty much dead. My ideal future was to be invisible.
After, I was different. I had to become an advocate, a caretaker, a parental figure. I went in a complete 180 spin from the invisible kid to this woman I still don’t always recognize.
I did what I had to do for my mom, for my baby brother, for my family.
But I still felt like every single decision I had made since that night when I was 21, I had made for other people. Even things like moving into my own space (so I had some space away from my family so I could actually care for them more efficiently) and joining the fire department (so they would pay for my EMS training so I could better advocate for my mom) were choices I made for other people.
I did what I had to do for other people, but where was I? Who was doing what was necessary for Annie?
My friend let me cry for a bit – she’s good at that – and then she talked.
“You still made those choices, Annie.”
I made hard choices in impossible situations. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to have to do the things I did.
“You chose to do all of those things. No one made you choose that. You could have chosen to walk away.”
Reader, I had forgotten that walking away was an option.
I am standing in the emergency room. I hate that I am doing this; I hate that I keep seeing red after I throw away the gloves; I hate that I wash my hands dozens of times and the red in my mind never really goes away.
I had forgotten that doing less – even doing nothing – was a choice I could have made.
“You have been in control, Annie.” My friend kept talking. “You couldn’t control the situation but you have always controlled how you handled it.”
That was something I needed – desperately – to hear. I had felt powerless in my own story. Isolated, small, just a tool for others.
But my friend reminded me that I couldn’t control the situation, only my response to it. And all of those things that had been weighing me down for just sort of melted away.
Because in every situation I had the choice to walk away.
I didn’t walk away because that’s not the type of person I want to be. That’s not the way I want to do life. That’s not the best Annie I could be.
So in a very real sense, while I was doing what was necessary for others, I was also doing what was necessary for myself.
I needed to realize that I’ve been moving forward this whole time. And that I’ve been working on being the human I want to be.
Because when I was a teenager, I wanted to be invisible because I was scared and hurt and lost.
I never really wanted that. I wanted to be Annie; sunshine and bubbles and open arms.
Today, I went to the Annual Town Meeting in my hometown. I went in the wrong door and showed up at the ballot clerk’s table flustered and laughing at myself.
“I know you,” one of the clerks said. “You’re the happy girl.”
And then I spent two hours running the microphone around the floor so people could make their voices heard.
Reader, half a dozen people have stopped me to chat this afternoon while I rummaged around town doing weekend chores, to ask if I got a breather after running the mic, to tell me that the sunflowers in the back window of my car are pretty.
That night when I was 21 I had the choice to walk away. To do nothing. To be invisible. I had impossible choices to make and I could have chosen the ‘easy’ way out.
But I made the choice I needed to for my own sake.
And realizing that made all the difference.
I may not see every battle you face or every choice you make but please know that I am so, so proud of you. It matters. It all matters. And I am here, cheering you on.
Love you. Mean it.
– A
💛
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Oh my…you amaze me with every writing, Annie. Every writing.
Keep at it, please. Many of us need to hear from you. About you. The words you write help us all. Many of us now know we really are normal.. At least I do.
Love ya. Mean it.