The prompt I saw on threads was to write about the first time you felt completely unseen:
Life as a kid
As a child, I used to insist I was a boy. I did not insist in a loud, rebellious way. I did so in that quiet, matter-of-fact voice kids use when they are just telling the truth. I felt like I was the only boy in a lineup of girls. At least, that’s how it felt whenever someone corrected me. They laughed and said, “You’ll grow out of it.” But I never did. I only grew into it… into me.
I ran with the boys, scraped my knees with them, played rough and loud and honest. We climbed trees like they held all the answers and built forts with sticks and secrets. Those early years were golden, before the world came in with its rules about what belonged to whom. I didn’t notice at first. Not until the divide came. The boys started pulling away. Birthday parties became gendered. Sleepovers stopped. Sports teams split. The invitations disappeared one by one like leaves falling off a tree I thought was evergreen.
The Change
That was the first time I felt completely unseen. Not because no one was looking at me, but because no one was seeing me. They were seeing who they decided I was.
I didn’t have the words for what I was yet. I just had the ache. I remember looking in the mirror. I tried to figure out where the boy had gone. I wondered if he’d ever been there at all. Society had given me a body and a name, and neither fit right. I had to carry both like a costume I couldn’t take off.
Losing those friendships was like being exiled from a country I thought was mine. And what’s worse, it was a silent exile. No goodbyes. Just distance. Just a shift. Just the sense that I had broken some unspoken rule.
Fast-Fwd to Now
Now, years later, I know better. I know who I am. But that was the beginning. That moment was the first real grief. The first rupture. The first time I felt the sharp sting of being unseen because I was trying to be seen for real.
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