Let's Talk About Being Invisible
I've always said that to be a Black Woman in America is to be completely unprotected. When I say this what I mean is that we're not only seen as less than which requires that we work a million times harder than everyone else but a lot of times we're also not seen at all. In my experience I've worked really really hard to avoid being missed… To avoid being invisible… However, to my dismay, I'm learning that even with all that effort I'm still invisible to many.
Invisible Until The World Decides That You Have Worth
I always dream about the days where I’m living out my passions (most likely traveling and writing screenplay after screenplay, or writing for television shows in LA) but for now, they’re stuck in my head and not in actual action because opportunities don’t come to those that others cannot see.
Although I do my best to ensure that my work gets out there as much as possible, these days, you’re only seen if you look a certain way and do a certain thing. Yes. This conversation again! Until it’s no longer a prevalent thing, this conversation needs to be had.
In the stream of people just screaming into the void that is the internet, certain things (and those things alone) get you out there.
This can be extremely exhausting for your average person just trying to work their way up, through and around. But Mark Twain said it best:
“The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.”
Although I have been largely struggling with either being way too invisible in this world or with being way to focused-on, I can see a healthy value in both when it comes to finding out my “why”.
In my role as a therapist, I can be completely invisible to my client because therapy is about them and not me. But in my role as a writer, I have to be heard at some point but struggle with feeling completely invisible by audiences these days whose focuses seem to have shifted more towards short videos than written words.
In my 9-to-5, I appear to be super visible to a certain co-worker who has been hyper-focused on literally everything that I do in the office and out of the office. In each of these instances, I do what needs to be done, and then others seem to decide the flow:
Do my clients appreciate a conversation that doesn’t get turned to be about the person that they’re talking to instead of them?
Would my writing even resonate with others if they were to read it instead of scrolling through TikTok videos?
Couldn’t my co-worker use that watchful eye for good instead of trying to constantly find something wrong with who I am and what I do (definitely her insecurity, but I digress)?
Even though I’m in complete control of putting myself and my work out there, the determinants fall elsewhere and that leads me back to my original thoughts on being invisible — I am invisible until this world feels that I have worth.
determinants
When figuring out where I’ll be, what I’ll be doing and who I’ll be doing it with, I can’t help but to think about all of the ways that I appear to be invisible today. It’s such a scary feeling to know that you’ve worked hard for so long but because of someone else’s insecurity or feelings of intimidation about you, you won’t progress. It’s such a scary feeling to know that you’re a creative, an artist, a screenwriter, but because of timing and even education maybe you won’t end up with the right people reading your work. It’s scary to think that people won’t pay attention because your aesthetic is different from the cookie-cutter crap that trends today where everything looks the same, everyone is a carbon copy of everyone else and everything is repeated a million times by a million different people.
Although I’m still searching for my “why” so that I can fully embrace my second most important day according to Mark Twain, I’m finding it equally important to also learn how to navigate this world and that starts with navigating in spaces where the world sees no value in you because of who you are, what you look like or what you do.
Someday I’ll be seen by all of the right people, find myself in the perfect places and I’ll be doing what I love and truly that’ll be all the lesson that I’ll need.
Best,
Invisible Bree