Thoughts on Being Visible

A couple of things happened today that made me sit up and take notice of the changes that are taking place in my life right now.

I was writing the “About” page for my personal blog and it struck me that after half a lifetime of being invisible by choice and liking it, that I appear to have made a conscious decision to become more visible this year. For the decade or so that I’ve been online I’ve always preferred to cloak myself in nicknames and persona and not really share too much about myself. I think in ten years there were maybe only ever two photos of me ever posted online and I made sure they came down pretty darn quick when I found out about them. I absolutely detest having my picture taken, so there’s not that many of them out there to begin with. You can imagine my surprise this afternoon when I found myself searching through my recent photos to find one that I felt comfortable sharing. It was definitely a scary moment, but a freeing one too.

The second thing that happened was someone asked me to share my weight loss issues with them. Granted it was a coach and the request was in preparation for an upcoming session so that she would have some background info to work with. But as I was writing out my story for her I realized that it was another case in which I had never verbalized the events that led to my weight gain or how I felt about them. This was the first time since I gained my first five pounds nearly 20 years ago that I had ever allowed my feelings on the issue to be visible to another person.

I’m still not sure where this road is taking me, but wherever it is and however I’m to get there, it really seems that I’m meant to be doing it in a much more visible manner than the one in which I’ve led my life for the last little while. The cool thing about it all is that for whatever reason, I’m not fighting this time. I am totally open and accepting of the changes that are coming my way and that’s a really nice way to be for a change.