There is a moment for every writer that traverses all there was before. When all of our efforts and crafted sentences finally pay off and we are seen. For me this moment started in my very first blog post. People I never knew reached out to me and told me how it spoke to them, others left a comment and described how it had made them feel. I was not aware that my words could have an effect on people until I had spoken them. Or to be more precise, written them down. I was not aware I could be seen.

I cannot explain to you what being seen feels like. The closest I can bring you to it is that naked feeling you get when you’re in the shower. That split second when you have just shed your clothes and have yet to jump under the water. That extreme feeling of being exposed.Being seen is wonderful and terrible at once, because for that moment you are, or are not, all you have claimed to be. And I have claimed to be a lot of things.

Recently I had a conversation with my mom about the labels we use to describe ourselves. She warned me from being too explicit in the language I used when writing, afraid that it wouldn’t be understood. I, of course, objected heavily. What was the point in writing if not baring your soul? What was the point in sharing if I wasn’t 100 percent forthright?

 In this day and age we are all the victims of the overshare. With social media ruling our lives, we all want to one-up each other by being more honest and truthful than our companions. We all want to get right to the heart of it and share that which is likely to move our fellow humans. We all want to affect change. We all want to be seen. But while vulnerability is beautiful, there is a sweet spot that we must reach. A specific combination of ingredients that is not too much and not too little.

Personally, I have no clue how to accomplish this. My tactic has always been overexposure. Give the people what they want in magnitude. Cover all your bases. Most recently I have done this in an essay I shared on dying. In the essay I described the multitude of ways it feels like to die. I express all of the emotions I went through in my near-death experience and throw in a bunch of labels I heard mentioned somewhere. It is an incredible feat and cringeworthy all at once. Just as my mom described, there were parts of me out there for the public to see that I would have rather kept hidden. There were pieces of my psyche ingrained in the words I had shared out there for all of the world to read. It was scary.

When you are being seen you don’t necessarily know that it is happening. It is possible for your words or lyrics or art to speak to someone 1000 miles away. And yet, it only really matters when you know it is happening. Being seen, being given that gift of vulnerability, is what changes hearts and minds. There is a moment I recall really clearly, when I first noticed I was being seen. I was writing a piece on femininity and womanhood and how we, as women, are affected by patriarchal structures, ensconced in a parable about dancing. The piece got a lot of likes and comments from my friends and I felt like “this is it”, “this is what I’ve been waiting for”. Of course it wasn’t what I’d been waiting for. Or wasn’t only what I’ve been waiting for. Being seen is wonderful, it is why we all do whatever we are doing, but there is a higher level of honesty that we must reach in all of our endeavors if we are to truly affect change. And that is being seen by ourselves. If you are able to see yourself clearly, to look at that reflection and take it in honestly, that’s when you have really made it.

Even as I write this a part of me hesitates to put it into words. A part of me shudders at my use of language and recoils at the openness of it all. A part of me denies that there is a reader at all, and that as I writer I owe this reader something. And yet maybe that is the beauty of it. Being seen is a messy process. To really be seen, we must be regarded with all of our flaws and faults.

Personally, I hope that I can remain being seen for myself more so than for what I hope myself is. I hope that I can maintain some level of honesty without getting completely swept up in it. I hope that I can also see you – the reader— for who you are, and not for who I’d like you to be.

Visibly yours,

Girl With One Earring