Invisible

This campus is enormous.

Sometimes...I feel like I'm completely unseen. Like I could twirl and dance and shout, but no one would see or hear. Like I could tumble to the ground dead and no one would stop walking, no one would even slow down to look at me.

Sometimes I feel like...no matter what I wear, no matter how I fix my hair, no matter if I spend two or twenty minutes on my makeup, it doesn't make a difference. No one will look at me any different. No one will remember my face.

Sometimes I feel.....invisible walking through the hordes of students making their way to classes and jobs and meetings with friends and peers. I feel lost in all the thoughts, swirling around in the wind.

Does he like me? 
Did I forget to turn in that assignment due today? 
I hope I did well on that test. 
I don't know how we're going to afford this baby. 
It was really embarrassing when my professor caught me on Facebook in class today. 
Hopefully my grandma is okay.
My roommate is a jerk.
Should I go on a mission?

They swallow me up. There are so many people on this campus, wrapped up in their lives. Some of them seem to wander around, unsure of where they're going, unsure of what they're doing. Some of them never move without a purpose, always thinking about the destination, always thinking about the next task ahead of them.

Among all of the thoughts and troubles and people around me, I feel small and insignificant. It makes it hard sometimes for me to walk with purpose. It makes it hard sometimes for me to look ahead to my destination. It makes it hard sometimes for me to remember all of the things that I'm supposed to be doing next. It makes it hard sometimes for me to wake up in the morning, to crawl out of bed, choose my clothes, do my hair, put on makeup.

I have this fantasy of simply standing still in the middle of a crowd of people. I'm standing in place while they all walk around me. Shoulders brush mine, backpacks bumping into my arms, strings of conversation floating past my ears, the rustling of coats and shoes and pants around me. I could raise my arms above my head, reach my hands to the sky and simply look up. No one would stop. I would be nothing more than a small rock in a great stream of water flowing down a mountain.

I have this vision of myself walking through a crowd, surrounded by a white bubble. It moves with me. People move around it without a second glance at me. It's almost cruel; it isolates me while giving me a glimpse of what I'm isolated from.

The things I struggle with weigh on my mind as I walk every day. I spend so much time walking. I spend so much time thinking. I spend so much time around people feeling alone. I feel lonely and empty, but at the same time so incredibly full. Full of words, of emotion, of sadness and missing things. I feel so full of all of this experience and knowledge, but at the same time I feel that there's something struggling to put itself in the reach of my arms. I sometimes wonder if I know what it is, other times I don't.

Don't think that I'm not happy with my life. I am. I am immeasurably happy with my family, the Gospel, my schooling, my home, my husband, especially. I can't deny that. I am terribly blessed and I am very aware of it, and very grateful for it.

But that doesn't change my feelings. I still feel small and sad and lonely and invisible. It's difficult to concentrate or feel motivated. The weight of feeling so utterly unseen presses on my heart, so heavy. I feel fragile and breakable and thin.

And then, like a fairy-tale but so much calmer, I feel bathed in a warm light that covers me, and me alone. I know that I'm not unseen. I know that I'm not invisible. I may be small and sad sometimes, but I am not alone.

Christ is with me.

And that feels like a warm blanket and a cup of hot chocolate on a rainy day.