What does it mean to be seen? I have been thinking about that a lot lately, and when I do, my mind often casts back to a day back in 2014, when I was 23 and not in a great place. It was not a good day, though when I conjure it up, I remember the sun was shining and there was a freshness in the air; it was roughly the same time of year as we are in now, when Spring is beginning to whisper promises of greater freedom and an escape from ourselves into overflowing beer gardens (gone are the days). A problematic relationship had recently wreaked havoc in my life before crashing and burning, and I was facing down big medical exams. I had not yet learned how to lean on friends and family in these moments, and I recognised a deep seated panic setting in that I was about to unravel. I struggled out of bed, forced myself out of the house and wandered aimlessly into town, all the while desperately hoping not to bump into anyone I knew, or at least that’s what I thought I was doing. A fleeting thought caught my attention that morning, ‘if I don’t talk to anyone today, do I even exist?’
I know, melodramatic! And not THAT profound, basically a more self-centred version of, ‘if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?’ And I have always thought that was stupid, because of course it does - the sound is there even if it is not received by an entity able to make sense of it. Same as me. Of course I existed even if I had no human contact - I was sustaining consciousness, generating mess, making soup out of vegetables - all concrete evidence of my being alive. But that thought has always stayed with me because, I think it says something about being human (and probably a lot about me which we’ll leave here for now). So much of our worth, our sense of self and our perception of realness is relational.
And that makes sense. As kids, we have no other way to interpret the world than through what we are shown and told by those around us. We infer how good we are from how we are treated and how benevolent the world is from the one created for us, and it’s hard to step back from those hardwired practices. So much of adulthood is a dizzying re-orientation of selfhood towards something more stable. I don’t pretend to know what that something is, but sometimes I like to think of it as a core set of pleasures, skills and values that we have honed for ourselves over that same timeframe.
But man oh man, that transition is BRUTAL and what’s worse, it is not absolute. We are still compelled, as social animals, to find someone else, anyone else, who will agree that our reoriented path is good, true, and valuable. That it is one you can do with companionship. To complicate matters further, we must ask our companions to accompany us even though sometimes, we find it impossible to live with integrity. Worse still, we must trust ourselves to find it again and again as life throws things at us that force us to change course, revert to a former self, or rethink what we thought we knew. To be able to do all of this; to live life from a secure base of self experienced and properly considered selfhood, to let others freely see all its contours, how it came to be, AND interact with it, that is what I think it means to be seen.
Going back to that day in 2015, I hadn’t figured out what my pleasures, skills or values really were yet. I was still scrambling around hoping that my achievements and the esteem of others would be enough to sustain me. And that effected everything; I didn’t have a secure sense of what I liked, how to dress, which hobbies to focus on, how to do my hair or decorate my room. I tried out a dark brown bob (too boyish), a nose piercing (nicely punk), playsuits (good for dancing, but too much leg), and bumbags (not for me). Without a secure base of self, it’s not totally surprising that on that day I look back on, interaction with others felt both overwhelming and completely essential. I wasn’t OK, and I couldn’t find myself; I needed someone to recognise me, and tell me that I would be in not too long.
You’ll be pleased to hear that, over time, I did manage to cobble together some sort of selfhood, though it is of course still a work in progress, and it has had moments of extreme challenge. In times of flux, there are some rituals I have come to lean on. For example, after having children, I could never quite muster enough effort to manage the kids for long enough to put effort into how I looked. As they got older though, there were more opportunities for me to pick out an outfit, do my hair, and put on some makeup, and when I did, I felt something shift. I revelled in the luxurious feel of silky soft cream smeared over my face. I remembered I was quite good at applying eyeliner and making utilitarian comfort look vaguely pretty (especially in the era of the ‘Mom’ jean). I was empowered by the revelation that I could choose – I could choose to embellish myself in these pleasing ways, and I could choose not to. It felt like a former me, reaching forward in time and embracing the present me in jubilant reunion - ‘there you are!’
So now, it is a tool in my box for tough days, and on the days I think of it, there are pleasures remembered, skills renewed and values upheld. The process is nostalgic, reminding me of years of ‘getting ready’ rituals savoured in adolescence. It connects me to my husband who will sometimes say, ‘I saw something that was so you at the shop today, would you like it?’ It makes me feel cherished by my friends who are overjoyed to see me looking well and tell me so. In those moments, I, like all of us, often brush comments off with ‘Oh I put some make up on for once’, or ‘yes, washed hair, who knew?!’, such is the vulnerability of being seen! But we all know that it is something more than that. It is a small reclaiming of self for all the world to see.
In a similar way, when Luce started making ambulatory chemotherapy pump pouches for patients she was meeting on the unit, the tiny miracle of it was clear to me. I imagine there are not many things scarier or more confronting than facing down a cancer diagnosis. It can strip all those external sources of validation away in an instant with nowhere to hide; bodies may look different, work has to change or fit in around a complicated cancer schedule, finances can be depleted, the ability to ‘contribute’ to a life dreamed up and strived for shifts.
So, if a pouch can help someone remember the pleasure of an audacious splash of colour, soothing fabric or a stylish aesthetic, perhaps it can help them connect with their other pleasures too? If it can help them go about their day more comfortably, without constantly having to find ways to accommodate their pump, maybe it can help them carry out some of the work they have toiled to become skilled at more easily? If it can help them be open and tell the world that they’re going through something really hard without ushering in victimhood, then maybe it can help them share other things in ways that honour their values too? Finally, if it can let them know that there are other people out there who have been through this, people who think that their pleasures, their skills, and their values matter now more than ever, more than anything they have ever ‘contributed’ or ‘achieved’, then maybe they can feel emboldened to show the world what their true self looks like as they walk this difficult path. Maybe they too, can let themselves be seen.
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