Pinch me, am I real?

Repost: originally written September 2006

Sometimes I feel invisible. Not around my family or anything, but at work. People see me and say things like "I didn't know you still worked here" (I've been here for over 4 years) or "Oh, I forgot you guys worked over there." I'm constantly being left off of mass emails and memos intended for my "team." I think I may have been invisible in high school too. I can't decide if this bothers me or not. I guess it doesn't bother me that much because it doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Does anyone who seriously believes their glory days were in high school go on to bigger things?

On paper, I was an involved active member of my high school, but in reality I must have been invisible. In June my graduating class had its class reunion (notice I said its, not our). I wasn't invited. I haven't moved far away, I still see some of the people I graduated with regularly and my parents have lived in the same house for 16 years. I swear I could move to Antarctica and the alumni society at my college would still manage to find me and ask for money, but somehow my former classmates couldn't find me. I was in classes with these people for 13 years, graduated 3rd in my class (don't get me started on why I wasn't salutatorian), was a varsity athlete and president of the National Honor Society. Or was I?

When I got to college, I felt like that was where I belonged. Sometimes I think my life began when I left the state for college in 1996. I have a lot of great memories of growing up, but evidently I was invisible up to that point. I guess I'd rather be invisible backstage than be in the spotlight and have everyone criticize my mistakes, be a monkey on my back (ha ha, monkeys are funny) and glorify the drama in my life.