Seeing and Being Seen

I feel like I am taking a big exhale this week. For the first time in a long time, I’ve got a normal week with nothing extra, nothing added. And it feels amazing.

I once read a joke - “Adulthood is just saying, ‘After this week, things will calm down,’ over and over until you die.” I feel like that’s my life. It’s not even my own projects, which wax and wane, but the weeks where there are meetings and field trips and appointments, not to mention the unforeseen things like plumbing and sicknesses and playdates that crop up. It can all feel crowded in sometimes, and a week without them feels like having a king-size bed all to myself. Space to stretch and rest.

I’m reading a series of memoirs by Madeleine L’Engle right now, and she spends a lot of time talking about the time before she sold her first book, a period of her life that she calls “The Tired Thirties.” She talks about being torn between her unpaid, unknown writing, her obligations to her family, the expectations of being a housewife in the 50s, and her volunteer work at her village church. Replace the “housewife in the 50s” with “modern parent in the 2020s” and it feels incredibly familiar.

In it, she talks about how in her moments of despair, she thinks to herself, “Is this all I’m good for? Running a little choir at a little church?” And then, of course, she talks about her own understanding of the real meaning and value of that little work. But I confess that my own brain has thought those words before. “Is this all I’m good for? Sending a million little emails? Folding laundry and then refolding it again next week? Schlepping my kids from one place to another ad nauseum?”

It’s important to me that we allow ourselves to sit in that frustration, that agitated state, for a while. Because what it speaks to is a feeling of being unvalued, unappreciated, unseen.

I think a lot of people in this world just want to feel seen., but they don’t admit it to themselves. They don’t want to acknowledge that they’re lonely or isolated, and so it comes out sideways, at odd times and odd places. A lot of people talk about random meetings with strangers where deep moments happen and every time, I recoil. I feel like a monster when I do but all I can think is - who is following up with that person? When someone shares with me how rough of a time they’re having, I want to check back in. When it’s a friend or a family member, I can make sure to call them in a week. But when it’s just in passing - on a plane or in a doctor’s office - there’s nothing I can do beyond that moment. They are just as alone as they were before we met.

I’m all for miraculous moments, but the reality is that most people who are going to be that vulnerable with a stranger need much, much more than a stranger can give them. They need a friend. That beautiful moment might alleviate their isolation but it’s not going to cure it. It’s like eating skittles when my body needs a meal. I don’t feel hungry any more - in fact, I feel amazing! — but my body is still undernourished.

I say this because I’ve been this person, when I was at home alone with a colicky baby, on a coast far away from home and support, with a husband that was doing his best but still left for 11 hours a day. I have so needed to feel seen. I remember that feeling and it was gut-wrenching. I dream about going back in time and hugging that woman, about telling her that it will all be ok. That my need for reassurance and support were not signs of weakness; they were signs that part of me was still up and fighting.

But I could only start getting those needs met when I was honest about them. It’s not sufficient of course - there may still be barriers to feeling seen — but it is necessary. We don’t need to be seen by strangers - we need to be understood by friends. We need the company of people who are going to walk through our whole lives with us, through the Tired Thirties and beyond. We need them to keep us going when we fall into self-pity and despair.

I think the moments of despair that L’Engle talks about are the moments when we, if we’re lucky, realize that the question contains the answer. “Is this all I’m good for?” The answer is yes - but not because she is not good for anything else, but because the work itself is good. The small moments that add up into a lifetime of being seen and seeing others. The daily in and outs that receive no acclaim but build the foundation for a life well-lived. The stability and support of a family that helps children grow up resilient and secure. These things create a life that can feel overfull with obligations, but also with meaning.

If that’s all I’m good for, I’m more than happy.