Invitation To Matter

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“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Growing up as the third child of six in a middle class Italian family — “three boys and three girls!”— as my parents so proudly used to say, there was rarely a dull moment. There was always something to do, to be done or something going on within the family. With what seemed like endless to-do lists of chores that were to be checked off and completed for all of us, with lots of rules and responsibilities depending upon our ages and sibling birth order, there was little time for being alone or for having time for quiet and calm.

Perhaps this is why I found myself choosing and yearning to sit alone on my own, and finding a source and sense of comfort there when that happened. The first four of us each were born two years apart, and then what was often described as “the second half of the family,” the younger two siblings six years later. With all of us children born within fourteen years, it was a very busy parenting and marital journey for our parents, for sure.

It is dark and I am still, my small child arms wrapped tightly around my legs that are pulled up to my chest. The clothes are falling all around me as I sit on the floor of my bedroom closet with the door closed, peering, staring intently out of the wooden slats of the closet door. I can hear the faint, muffled sounds of family life in the distance as I sit quietly and still, feeling both comforted by the quiet and by my choosing of this time and place for myself. At the same time, a bit scared, nervous and sad, I wonder if anyone in my family knows that I am “missing.” Unaware of any passage of time in my child’s mind, I slowly open the door and walk back downstairs to the hubbub of family life, expectations and responsibilities, and slip back in to participate without missing a beat, as if I had never been gone.

Feeling Lonely In A Crowd

Feeling invisible or unseen is a most powerful and significant emotion. The experience and sense of being ignored, overlooked or not acknowledged or valued by others often leads to feelings of loneliness, isolation or a feeling that one does not belong. From a very young age, it seems, I developed a felt sense about the ebb and flow, the tension and constriction, and ultimately the comfort in the familiarity of the family unit, of being together again, all the while wondering, questioning about when and how I was visible and seen, and feeling like I mattered.

Benedictine monk and author Br. David Steindl-Rast says, “To live means to be in relationship, and that requires love in action.” For us to put love into action and to experience belonging and connection with others, we must first feel comfortable, safe and at ease with ourselves — our true selves. It takes time to explore our mind and body deeply, in order to know, trust, accept and feel free enough to reveal and express ourselves first with ourselves, and then to show up for others.

From a very young age, I felt a strong visceral connection with mothering and feeling maternal towards my siblings. That happened, in particular, when my youngest brother and sister were born, when I was just six and ten years old, respectively. I can still experience my breathing quicken and chest tighten, puffing a bit with nervousness, fear and a sense of pride with the responsibilities I was both allowed and given at such a young age in assisting my mother with their care. While feeling recognized, noticed, valued and seen during these years as a young child, at the same time I felt overwhelmed by the enormity of what these responsibilities meant, most of which I was certainly unaware of at that time.

Feeling invisible or unseen is a most powerful and significant emotion. The experience and sense of being ignored, overlooked or not acknowledged or valued by others often leads to feelings of loneliness, isolation or a feeling that one does not belong.

While mothering continued to play a strong undercurrent in my developing years, its expression took a very big detour, one might say, as I unknowingly took on the emotional caregiving role in more depth as a young adolescent teen. When our mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, for what was to be the first of three times over the next twenty years, it was during those young teen years that I developed an eating disorder. How else was I to manage the delicate roles, tension, responsibility and support of caring for myself, and the person I so loved and was concerned about, who also was the primary caregiving parent for myself and my siblings?!

There was no question that the ease and comfort of caregiving others was set firmly in my bone marrow, as it came through much more easily than caring for myself. Of course, I was unaware of this strong undercurrent, while at the same time demonstrating to the world the perfect juggling act of responsibilities and activities both inside and outside the family home. Most notably, it was my mothering of the people I loved and cared about that comforted and calmed me, I thought.

Rising Above Mental Health Stigma

It was not until I was about to graduate and transition from the cocoon of college life that I experienced overwhelming and perplexing emotions of great sadness and feeling lost. I was simply no longer able to hide from myself at that time in my life, and a kind, thoughtful and nonjudgmental friend encouraged me to try a therapy session at the college counseling center.

It was with much reservation and relief when I walked through those doors that day. Even as I sat tensely in the room due to the stigma attached to receiving mental health treatment, I was aware I was right where I needed to be. Several years later I would begin my foray into an arduous journey of deep exploration into my psyche, my heart, my behaviors and my soul, after finding a skilled therapist I genuinely connected with, and will forever be grateful to for the therapeutic work we did together for over thirty years.

This extremely meaningful therapeutic work was life-changing for me, and dare I say, saved my life, too. Learning how to allow myself to be open, vulnerable and be seen this way over the years was, and continues to be, a complex learning process that requires patience, kindness, empathy, compassion, radical honesty, respect, trust, and authenticity, beginning with myself. This allows me to accept all of my self, welcoming everything in, as I continually ride the emotional waves of life — surfing — sometimes better than others, and learning what to let in and what to let go of, all the while reminding myself it is okay to show myself along the way at my own pacing.

It is not news that we all experience shame, judgment, judging, vulnerability, uncertainty and othering as we explore our individual and unique paths. We are all interconnected in this way. At the same time, the depth and breadth of diversity of these experiences is true, radical and real, as we continue to manage the uncertainty, tension and rawness of our individual uniqueness.

Yearning To Be Seen

As I walk along the beach, I notice the waves, the sky, the clouds, the feel of the air on my skin, the sand under my feet, and so much more, including the seals’ movements, sometimes popping their heads up looking out to the shore, only to quickly dive back and be invisible again. One day a surprisingly beautiful sight occurred as a very large seal sat majestically and proudly at the shoreline. S/he made direct eye contact with me as I walked closer, as if to say, “I’m here!”

I queried, feeling a slight, but familiar tension in my shoulders and heart, if that seal, too, was yearning to be seen, to be visible, to matter in this world? In its full body splendor without any judgment or body shaming, s/he sat there momentarily, and then slipped back into the ocean without a trace. With a full heart and big smile, I acknowledged we had seen one another so genuinely and directly, eye-to-eye, soul-to-soul, it seemed. The excitement of connecting with an animal being and nature’s bounty in that way continues to nourish and reveal itself to me.

And my path continues to be filled with experiences of great challenge and joy, learning what it means to fall down and then get back up again and again and again. As I reflect upon and practice all that I have learned and continue to learn about myself, I am reminded to be curious about the significance of mattering, one moment, one step at a time.

Marjorie Gonzalez, an LICSW, M.Ed. with over thirty years of clinical experience in a variety of settings, currently has a private practice offering telehealth therapy. She is a mother of two adult daughters, who believes that mothering and parenting them has been, and continues to be, her north star and guiding light in her ongoing life journey.  Find Marjorie Gonzalez, LICSW, private practitioner, here.

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