Growing up a Gopher

My husband Martin would often talk about the TV shows he would watch growing up and the actors and actresses who were popular back then. Although some of them would be familiar to me, I did not recognize most of them.

We were allowed to watch TV but for some reason, I could not remember many of the shows and artists. To explain this, I would tell him I lived most of my life underground. As a shy person, I could not bear for people to notice me and so I made myself as unnoticeable as possible. I was here and alive but I was not participating in life. I always wanted to be in the background so that nobody would see me.

I described myself to him as a gopher. Gophers live their lives underground but they also have to look out to find out if they were safe or if danger was close at hand.

I told Martin that I lived underground and hid most of the time but would sometimes come out to check the environment. Those were the times I remembered and recognized what was going on around me.

As a result of wanting to disappear, I have also become unobservant of the things around me. I realize that as a result of wanting to disappear, I also sometimes miss out on the beauty around me.

I am learning and slowly fighting my way into life.