Invisible. This is how I am feeling as I am looking out the window of a cozy neighbourhood cafe and seeing my own frowning reflection. I feel invisible, and it is not in a good way where some like to remain unnoticed and be left alone in a crowded room.

It is more like this uncomfortable sense that I do not matter. I am not as important as anyone else. My actions, emotions, thoughts, and words seem as meaningless as a note written with gel ink on a soft piece of two-ply toilet paper in a violent typhoon.

My mother told me yesterday out of the blue that I needed to apologize to my brother. This request came almost three months after our big fight. It was not him who was going to say, “I’m sorry”. It had to be me. I saw red.

I would NOT do it. Not after all the sharp words he hurled at me three months prior that shredded my heart into billion pieces of almost nothingness. Not after he told my mother over the phone to leave me on the floor after I had fainted from all the stress of the fight and the events that led up to it. Despite my condition at that time, I heard him. Loud and clear. Crystal clear.

Three slow months it took to build myself back up out of the ashes after the dumpster fire of dysfunctional family dynamics. It started with small steps with me going to the doctor on a semi-regular basis to take care of my migraines. They had persisted for four months while I was dealing with the said fire, leading up to the big explosion. Then I began examining what I had believed about myself that put me in yet another situation that reflected back to me my absolute worthlessness. How many times have I heard those same words of disapproval and disdain from different people over the course of my life? How many times have I been told to leave when it was the other person who chose to not do the work to improve things but rather thought it was better to work around me or remove me? How many times have I been ignored despite my plea for help? The answer is too many. Each instance had felt like an extra weight added to the sleeves of the barbell of my existence.

This was the work I did, day in and day out, morning and night – identifying and changing my self-belief and my self-concept that were concretely embedded into my consciousness. Sometimes it felt like I was rolling an average-sized stone up a hill. Sometimes a gigantic boulder. Some days I just could not go up at all. It has been exhausting, painful, and tedious. My heart was and is bruised purple. It is an ongoing process, and it may be so for the rest of my days.

Earlier yesterday when I was on my regular (and this time literal) hike up a green hill, I told myself that I was sorry that I did not protect you and keep you safe. I acknowledged I did not take good care of you before. I did not feel confident or secure enough to know how to or think I had the capacity to do any of these. I promised myself that I was going to be your best friend going forward. It felt like a poignant and remarkable moment. In the famous words sung by Chris Martin of Coldplay, “it was all yellow”.

Then I came home to this request for an apology to my brother from my mother. It was an implication that what I went through did not matter. My experience was nullified.

Last night the dark clouds started to settle into my head and heart, and I kept myself busy to keep moving forward. No, I would not succumb to maternal pressure to wave the white flag to my brother. Not now. At this point in time, my apologizing would mean that what he said and did to me were okay. It was not. It is not. It will never be.

Now I am sitting in a cafe looking out the window and seeing my reflection, flipping through all these thoughts and memories. Despite it being sunny outside, it feels like a drab day for me.

The cafe owner comes over with my hand drip coffee order on a tray. After I extend my gratitude for her service and drink, I look down at the empty cup into which I would pour the coffee from the carafe. It is shiny and shaped like a delicate flower. Its colour is light grey. It strikes me that despite it not being a conventionally uplifting colour especially for the shape it has, it is quite captivating and makes my soul sing.

As I pour black coffee into my grey cup, it dawns on me that I do not need to continue to feel invisible. I can write. Putting my pen to paper and anchoring my floating emotions and thoughts into concrete words would give me the roots I need to flourish in some way. Not necessarily to be seen but rather to be counted. My grey story is just as beautiful as the colourful ones.

To some, my feelings do not matter. My boundaries are okay to minimize. My opinions are negligible. My health and life are expandable. My existence is not important. To them, it is simple to make me invisible. Easy to grey out. I do not wish to be continuing to be on a road where these people have access to me. Their aura emits an orange flashing light of caution and peril.

In my mind’s eye, I see myself turning around to walk a different path.

I AM significant. I AM worthy. I AM important. I MATTER.

In the words of the well-known 1980s and 1990s pop star artists, Cyndi Lauder and Phil Collins, “true colours, your true colours are beautiful like a rainbow”.

I, along with every living being in this world, am all the colours of the rainbow and more. Not invisible. Vivid.