On being invisible

While walking the streets of London

View from my hotel lobby window

I have a friend in her late 40s who’s in the process of growing out her grey roots. Regarding this experience, she said to me the other day, “I really miss having others say to me that I look young for my age.” She’s bought into the belief that looking younger is better. I’ve also had post menopausal friends say to me, ‘It’s like I’m invisible now.’

I’ve recently arrived in London for an epic bucket list trip. While waiting for my check-in time at the hotel, I wandered the streets of London yesterday for hours knowing exactly what that feels like. It was as if I wasn’t even here. No one looked me in the eye or smiled. The only people to acknowledge my existence were the servers bringing me food. And even then it was quick and perfunctory.

I’ve always considered myself to be an outgoing person. I smile and start conversations. Most people have been open to meeting someone new in my experience, but not so much lately.

Have I reached a certain age when I go invisible or are people just completely burnt out on other people?

I think we’re at a saturation point where we can barely stand new input from outside influences. I’ve noticed a burrowing in as a kind of self protective mechanism. The only strangers willing to converse with me are from older generations, the ones who remember that human connections and village life meant survival, that caring for each other equaled self-care. These are also the ones least likely to be immersed in online life.

I heard a podcast the other day about how influencers are dropping out in record numbers. They’re exhausted from the constant output without the benefit of real-time energy coming back in.

Many have said to me, I’m not on social media anymore.

I myself have pulled out of most channels besides this one.

I’m craving in-person connection in a way I never have. I want to feel another person’s warmth next to me, to see their facial expressions in real time, to hear them sigh and feel the rush of air come from their body. I want meaningful physical connections and I’m ok with having less ‘likes’ but more hugs.

How ‘bout you?

I think we’re all reexamining what connection means to us, and what type of exchanges we want to have with other humans.

The current massive influx of Aries and Taurus energy is asking us to look at who we are at the most rudimentary levels. What do we put our energy toward? What is no longer sustainable?

As we’re evaluating what it means to be here now, there’s an inevitable time of turning inward to look at the values we hold.

Maybe we’re all becoming invisible to each other for a time so we can only hear our own internal voices?

I think these times call for extreme self-care, a gentleness for ourselves never given before. When we can no longer extract energy from others in artificial ways, we must learn to generate it for ourselves from the core of our beingness.

We must learn to see ourselves in a whole new way. Not through others’ eyes but solely our own.

Our attractiveness doesn’t come from how we look or other extrinsic factors, but the energy we carry. Our external package becomes irrelevant to the course of a day’s experience because it’s our internal thoughts and feelings that create our outcomes.

This can be disarming at first, until you start to feel the freedom this provides. All the time and energy normally given to having perfect hair, teeth, abs, thighs, clothes, jobs, cars, houses, etc. etc., can now be spent on what do I want to experience today and how do I want to feel?

And also, what will I create of meaning? How will I express love, gratitude and care to myself, and then others?

Hours of the day suddenly become available that were until now spent on unknowingly inane tasks.

This wisdom is usually reserved for those in their later decades. The payoff for all the wrinkles and loose skin.

But I believe this devil may care way of being will become the norm for many now, younger people included, as we all come to realize just how senseless it’s been to focus on upholding things that have never mattered in the first place.

So relish the superpower of invisibleness. Use this time wisely to rebuild your inner life from the ground up. Release the need to buy the next big thing that will ‘fix’ you. You don’t need to be fixed, and you’re not meant to be seen right now anyway…

Learn to trust yourself, your own desires and internal compass.

Once you reemerge as your real self, you’ll attract the people who see this person. There may be fewer of these people, but those relationships will be the most fulfilling of your life.

Cheers from the United Kingdom,

Kimberly xo