I Feel Invisible

It’s a foreign and unsettling feeling.

I haven’t lived alone in twenty years. It was a fantasy. To have utter silence and the ability to control my environment.

As I’ve lamented relentlessly, the loss of not seeing my children daily gutted me. When the fantasy became a reality after divorce, it was a slap against everything I thought about my life as a full-time, working mom who was “single” because her husband worked far away and was nothing more than an additional child.

It’s been eight months and I still struggle. I removed myself from motherhood and feel like a fraud, someone who stands in for the actual star of the movie.

It’s not only about the kids. It’s about family. It’s about having a mini-community within the confines of a home. While I crave peace, no longer having constant background noise from other dwellers is unnerving.

The silence is so jarring that I discovered I have tinnitus. Even when my kids were asleep, the sound machines in their rooms provided faint background audio combined with my ex-husband’s drone of the downstairs TV (since we never hung out together). A few months ago I scoured my house searching for the source of the incessant high-pitched ringing until I realized it was literally all in my head.

This weekend, I forced myself to spend it alone. It’s easy to avoid friends. My world distills down to married couples with children; weekends are always family time or combined family events centered around our kids. Without my kids, there are no activities for me to see them. I made an active decision to not go on any dates (admittedly, I went on one Friday night).

I planned to spend all day Saturday (today) running errands and doing laundry. Sunday plans are to leisurely read. There’s more I’d like to do, but it all costs money which is in short supply with one income. In the absence of children, I got my errands done by noon. Time moves at a different pace when it’s only you.

With eight baskets of laundry to be put away, I opted to begin my reading early. I’m reading The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. And then it hit me.

I feel invisible without my family.

If I slipped and cracked my skull, no one would notice until Monday when my ex-husband would inevitably send me texts about joint 4th of July plans.

It’s like I don’t exist. I’m meaningless.

While the latter comment seems dark, it’s matter-of-fact. I’m not on a team where my absence is noted. I don’t mean just a family team but also a professional team. Perhaps it would be different if I worked in an office five days a week, but even then I’m a lone wolf in my role. Heck, I don’t even have a boss since they fired the last one. I can spend days doing nothing but occasionally checking emails.

When my shower curtain occasionally pops off some of the shower hooks, I climb on the tub ledge only when it’s dry. I have a fear that I’ll slip and fall, only to be paralyzed and unable to call for help.

It’s not that being a parent is the only thing that provided meaning in my life. I felt fulfilled before creating spawn. But to have that additional purpose, and then have it taken away 50% of the time, leaves a ginormous gap in the pie chart of All Things That Give Meaning To My Life.

Yes, I should fill that gap. That was the intention of this weekend. I glamorized reading at the beach until I remembered that a 4th of July weekend at the beach is suicidal. I considered taking my returns to a fancier mall by the ocean but with gas at almost $7 a pop, I didn’t feel comfortable making that trek.

Reluctantly, I stop by a food court near Target midway through errands to grab a slice of pizza. I hate eating out alone, even if it’s fast food. Before, it was a necessity to ease my grumbling stomach. Now, it feels like I’m a lonely spinster who eats alone.

I took a nap on the couch. Then I did more laundry. And then I read for three hours. A massive boom! outside made me jump to see which neighbor was illegally setting off fireworks.

Across the street, Ryan was already out there. He comments how the teenagers setting them off woke his seven-week-old baby. Another neighbor, Craig, steps outside and rants like a cranky old man. Finally, the neighbors next to me come out as well. Matthew (who looks uncannily like he could be Jon’s younger, hotter brother which throws me for a loop every time I see him) is out with his wife and son.

After we watch the teenagers get yelled at to stop, we wish each other goodnight and go inside. In the bubbles that are their homes, they rejoin their herd. They aren’t forgotten.

As I step inside my empty house, the feeling of invisibility kicks in again. My presence doesn’t matter. Whether I’m home or not, no one notices. There is no one to care.

My respect for people who have spent a lifetime being single continues to skyrocket. Not only have they managed to function on a single income in a dual-income society, but they’ve conquered invisibility. Or maybe they don’t know the alternative so there is no change to get used to.

The new therapist I’m seeing reminded me that this is the new norm. I need to get used to this. This is my life now. It’s up to me to find who I am now that I am no longer in a shitty marriage.

Before, I felt like I mattered. Now…I feel invisible.