Woe is you, but this is sooooo true. Out of sight, out of mind. Have you ever had the feeling that you're invisible? There but only on the periphery of someone's consciousness. Like an "oh yeah, there's [that person], too..." It's not a pleasant feeling. One, I'm sad to say, I have felt numerous times in my young life. Out of sight, out of mind.
On the other hand; it's hard to be distinctive, too. Every move you make speculated upon, noted, critiqued, or even praised. When you would kill for just a second to be... average; able to dissolve into a sea of everyone. Not resented for standing apart, not praised for being so different. Not unique, just normal. I've felt that too.
I have learned over the past 21 years, as you can guess -- or maybe you can't? -- I'd much rather be the center of attention, than be forgotten. You can always pretend there aren't people talking about you; but I'm fairly certain you can't pretend you matter when you don't. As harsh as that sounds, you can't make people care about you.
Damn, Piph. What's with the down and depressed? You ask
Well, honestly I'm not down. It's just something I've been thinking about. Having been on both sides of the attention scale. What I wouldn't have given, growing up in my church, to not have been so smart. I was teased, ridiculed, and continuously brought into the center of attention by teachers. I was too smart, too literate. I dressed nicely, rode in nice cars and "talked white." Not that I would give my education up for anything, even then I knew I had an opportunity the kids teasing me didn't. But I resented the fact that I was resented.
But it continued, the attention.
- Epiphany made the high honor roll.
- Epiphany was accepted in the National Honor Society.
- Epiphany is in the Who's Who of American High School Students.
- Epiphany is in the newspaper...again.
- Epiphany is on the cover of the newspaper.
- Epiphany scored highly on standardized testing.
- Epiphany got a scholarship to NYU
I had to learn, after many, many years of teasing, not to be self-conscious because I'm smart. Yes, I can read a complete sentence...very quickly. I eat books. And book worms are sexy. I don't "talk white," I speak proper American English. And damn right, I will be acknowledged and praised as an excellent dancer.
Summer of 2007 ended, and I got out of Cincinnati so fast I probably left dust trails. I left my family and -- I was going to say "friends" but I think "people I knew in high school" might be a better description. "I was Eastbound and down, moving to New York." I worried, of course, not about whether I'd make it in school. I had every faith that New York City was just what I needed. No, I worried about leaving my family. I worried that my younger cousins wouldn't remember me, the youngest was only about 2. But that didn't happen. The babies were ecstatic when I would come home. I think me leaving was a bit of a novelty, as my whole family pretty much lives in Cincinnati. I was the first person to leave the tri-state area in quite some time. And upon my graduation I can't tell you how many times people (not just family) asked if I was moving back.
I'm sorry... I don't understand your question.
I have every intention of staying, and if not here, then I can confidently say I'm sure as hell not going back to Cincinnati. What for? Yes, my family lives there... but it's not home. Not any more. And I find myself wondering, as I spend more and more time away from the center of things, how much longer I can be out of sight until I am officially out of mind. Am I an after thought yet? Do they think of the first round of grandkids, my generation, and remember that I too am a part of it? I don't know.
And as shitty as it feels to be a second thought to someone, I know I've done it to others. Think 2 paragraphs up when I talked about my friends from high school. Yeah, I've talked to maybe 3 of them since graduation. And only on facebook. Our lives just grew apart, we wanted different things. I was separated by at least the distance from New York to Ohio, and from some the distance of a country. When I no longer saw them everyday, we had no reason to keep in touch. Out of sight, out of mind. Really puts certain relationships into perspective, eh?
But what can you do? Sometimes we outgrow the people in our lives. The directions our paths take go separately for a time. Maybe the come back together, but maybe they don't. If you find yourself out of sight and out of mind, I say try not to let it bother you. It just means that something, or maybe someone, new is coming to fill that void. You never know what the Lord has planned for you. My advice? So glad you asked:
Live. Like there's no tomorrow.
Laugh. Like it's heaven on earth.
Love. Like you'll never be hurt.
Dance. Like no one is watching.
the rest is still UNwritten...
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