(just a note: this is from my wordpress. it’s cool if you don’t publish it. and thank you for maintaining this space. this blog is incredible. -jen)

Becoming visible again is almost as painful as the invisibility.

The thing about invisibility is: I was always there.

The other thing about invisibility is: I always saw you.

I saw you not see me in the shop, even though you were friendly to the people I came in with. I saw you not see me on the sidewalk, even though you smiled at my friend.

I saw you not see me as I walked through the door right behind you – I must have been invisible because you held the door open and smiled for that lovely girl in front of me before you let it fall back in my face. I saw you not see me as you chatted and joked with the other customers at the bar.

I saw you not see me as we were standing so close that not acknowledging each other was awkward.

Something must have changed though, because now when I walk into a store you smile at me. You ask what I’m looking for and you help me find it, and then you tell it looks great. And if it doesn’t you bring me something that does without me even asking.

You smile warmly at me when we pass on the avenue, you tell me good day or something like that. Sometimes you even tell me you love my dress or my boots, and you ask me where I shop.

You see me well enough now that it feels like the whole world is opening doors for me. You talk to me like you can see me, and I never feel ignored.

You even make small talk with me. Lots of it. There is small talk everywhere I go now, where before the silence was painful and obvious and loud.

I wasn’t always invisible, you know. People used to see me just fine. Visibility was so normal that I thought that was how life must be for everyone.

I became invisible by degrees. Small talk with strangers was the first thing to go, and I sadly chalked the loss up to my age. Maybe this means people were nice because they were treating me like a child, was how I explained it away, all of twenty-one years old.

Some of my friends stopped seeing me too. My jokes went unheard, people forgot that I was there for adventures and analyzing and talking for ages. The same people who used to tell me how wise and intelligent they found me couldn’t see me either. I know because when I tried to contribute to a discussion the condition I had as a child playing with older cooler kids came back – did you hear something? no, it must have the wind.

Maybe I had been invisible the whole time. Maybe it had been in remission.

Now that I’m becoming visible again, I know what caused this strange condition.

You didn’t see me because I was fat.

Because of the size of my body, you decided that I could do longer be feminine or smart, or interesting, or useful, or ridiculous, or pretty, or obsessed with my interests, or wise, or fun, or sarcastic, or talented, or cranky, or deserving of cute clothes, or worth talking to or smiling at or even just acknowledging. I couldn’t be anything but fat.

And now when you see me, you see an average girl. Not skinny, but not fat either. And you think that you are being friendly to me because you are a friendly person, but I know the truth.

You’re friendliness stops where your blindness starts. And you chose to be blind to me.

So take your small talk somewhere else. I’m not ready to forgive you.