Being Invisible Made Me Invisible

Yesterday was full panic mode and honestly kind of a blur.

But before we even get into all that chaos, yes, of course I still did my glow routine and filmed my morning vlog because apparently consistency is key even while your nervous system is hanging on by a thread 😂

Only problem? The vlog took EIGHT attempts to finally upload and go live.

Eight.

I almost launched my phone into another dimension.

Every time I thought it finally uploaded… nope. Failed again. At that point I should’ve known the universe was setting the tone for the next 48 hours.

Which is exactly why there was no weird shit blog yesterday because my brain was already doing Olympic level gymnastics over my lease renewal inspection.

And logically? I know everything is fine.

But trauma brain does not care about logic.

Trauma brain was absolutely convinced I was somehow about to lose the first home that has ever actually felt safe to me.

And that sounds dramatic until you really sit down and think about the fact that I’ve survived house fires, roofs collapsing, instability, rebuilding from scratch, and periods of my life where “home” never actually felt like home.

So now my nervous system does this really fun thing where anytime stability shows up it immediately starts preparing for disaster.

Love that for me.

What’s wild is I sat there today looking around my apartment realizing this is the first place I have fully furnished exactly the way I wanted to furnish it.

Nobody handed me this life.

Two years ago I started here sleeping on an air mattress.

It took me nine months just to finally buy myself a bed because I got everything for My Son first. The couch. The computer desk. The PlayStation 5. The giant TV. Piece by piece I built this place while rebuilding myself at the same time.

Hold on one second because my kid just interrupted me to show me his work schedule 😂

Okay anyway back to today’s programming.

This is real life. This is literally how my brain works.

But seriously… somewhere in the middle of panic cleaning and reorganizing things that already looked completely fine, I realized something huge:

I actually like being home now.

That’s new for me.

I used to run run run. Go go go. Work nonstop. Stay busy. Stay distracted. Because being home meant sitting still long enough to feel things I didn’t want to feel.

Now my apartment feels peaceful.

Safe.

Mine.

And I think that’s why this whole inspection thing cracked something open emotionally.

Because when you’ve spent your whole life surviving, your nervous system almost doesn’t know what to do once you finally become safe enough to exhale.

So after panic cleaning my apartment like the lease inspection gods themselves were personally coming to judge my junk drawer, I rushed to my office for my first client of the day.

Her appointment was at 9:30AM.

Did we start at 9:30?

Absolutely not 😂

We ended up talking so much we didn’t even start until after 10 and the entire time I’m internally yelling at myself like:

“HELLO LYNETTE. YOU CANNOT RUN BEHIND TODAY.”

Because I had to be at my first Special Needs client’s house by noon and it’s a 35 minute drive.

Like ma’am… respectfully… get your shit together.

But sometimes you just can’t help it.

Some clients you just have this magical bond with and you gotta clear everything out before the session even starts. Energy first. Massage second. It is what it is.

So I finish up there and head to my first Special Needs client’s house and as I’m getting ready to leave another one pops in and goes:

“Hey, you can come today if you want.”

And I swear I almost yelled:

“SWEET BABY JESUS THANK YOU.”

Because it saved me gas, extra driving, extra chaos, and it worked out perfectly since I was already right there.

Meanwhile I was originally supposed to pick My Son up and bring him to my ex-husband’s house but instead he ended up taking a Lyft which honestly worked out better for everyone involved because at this point the day was basically running me instead of the other way around 😂

After finishing with my Special Needs clients I headed home, grabbed gas on the way, parked the car in the garage, and walked my cute little patootie over to my office for a two hour massage.

And this client?

Absolutely amazing.

Not only did she book her next two sessions, but she also booked a massage for her daughter too.

Then later I get this adorable text message talking about how excited and happy her daughter was to come see me and honestly y’all…

THIS is the shit that keeps me going.

People genuinely being excited to see me never stops feeling surreal to me.

Like little kid Lynette who spent years feeling invisible would never believe this is her life now.

Then my last client of the night was a 90 minute massage and somehow in all the years I’ve worked on this client, this was the FIRST time we’ve ever done a full 90 minutes together.

And the session was incredible.

That’s actually where the conversation about invisibility happened.

Because somewhere along the way I learned how to disappear inside my own life.

And now?

Being invisible is getting really hard.

I’m finally living my best life and suddenly people from 20 years ago are showing up telling me they’re proud of me.

People are noticing my glow.

People are respecting me in ways I honestly never even imagined were possible.

Like grown men are opening doors for me with giant smiles on their faces and I’m over here looking around confused like:

“Wait… what is happening?” 😂

People are calling me to apologize.

Actually communicate.

Take accountability.

Break things down instead of running from conversations.

And I think the weirdest realization lately is understanding that people would actually rather have me in their life than lose me from it.

I genuinely had no idea the impact I’ve made on people all these years.

Which is wild considering how invisible I made myself for so long.

So naturally after all these emotional realizations and twelve straight hours of human interaction, I go pick My Son up from my ex-husband’s house and he casually goes:

“Oh Mom, I need a padlock with a key.”

Sir.

It is 9:30 at night 😂

So now we gotta go to Walmart for a damn padlock.

And somehow my squirrel brain immediately decides:

“You know what else we need? A new vacuum.”

So there I am wandering around Walmart exhausted, emotionally reflective, holding a padlock while also debating if this is the perfect time to buy a vacuum cleaner.

I literally had to pull myself together and go:

“Yo Wilson. Get your shit together. You are here for a padlock.”

Not a vacuum.

Not a life reinvention.

A padlock.

At this point all I wanted in life was a McDonald’s double cheeseburger.

And honestly after surviving off a giant beef stick and Mountain Dew most of the day, the double cheeseburger just felt spiritually aligned.

So I got the padlock.

Got the cheeseburger.

Came home.

OH WAIT.

We cannot forget the actual lease inspection itself because apparently I spent two straight days emotionally preparing for absolutely nothing 😂

So when I picked My Son up later he starts telling me all about how the inspection went while I was at work.

He goes:

“Yeah Mom they came in, said everything looks good, and then the lady started asking questions about your rocks and stones and where you got everything from and what you do.”

Apparently she was new because neither of us had seen her before.

Now listen… when I say rocks and stones I do not mean a cute little bowl from Target 😂

I have an entire cabinet full of crystals, rocks, stones, specimens, and weird little treasures that are probably worth close to $20,000 altogether at this point.

So apparently instead of judging me, this poor woman basically walked into a tiny spiritual geology museum and got curious 😂

Then he goes:

“Oh and she said she was taking pictures of the carpet because they’ve been talking about replacing the carpet.”

…

WAIT.

So you mean to tell me I was over here panic cleaning, emotionally spiraling, and preparing for homelessness in my head over absolutely nothing? 😂

Oh trauma brain…

You dramatic little psychopath.

Then My Son continues with:

“Oh and maintenance came too.”

Immediately I’m like:

“…why?”

So apparently when the upstairs neighbors flush their toilet there’s this loud TING TING TING sound in the bathroom wall.

Now listen.

I have literally lived through bathroom ceilings collapsing from water leaks before so the second I heard that sound the other day my nervous system basically went:

“WELP HERE WE GO AGAIN.”

So I reported it to the office because honestly I didn’t even know how to properly explain it on a maintenance form other than:

“There’s a demon toilet singing through the walls.”

Apparently maintenance showed up while My Son had literally JUST gotten out of the shower.

My poor child almost dropped his towel in front of the maintenance men while the dog was losing his absolute mind barking at everybody 😂

And then the funniest part of all this is I’m so used to people dismissing me or acting like I’m overreacting that the first thing I asked him was:

“Okay but seriously… am I crazy or was there actually something wrong?”

And he goes:

“Well first the maintenance guy played with the dog for awhile and then they started laughing because apparently that toilet IS loud as hell.”

Then he says:

“They told me, ‘No wonder your mom reported it.’”

AND Y’ALL…

They literally said:

“No your mom’s not crazy. You can tell her that.” 😂

Honestly?

That part probably healed something tiny inside of me.

Because people who grow up around chaos get conditioned to question themselves constantly.

You start second guessing your instincts.

Your feelings.

Your reactions.

Your fears.

Meanwhile sometimes the toilet really is loud as shit and your nervous system is just trying to protect the sanctuary you worked so hard to build.

And maybe that’s the whole point of this blog.

Being invisible made me invisible.

I got so used to minimizing myself, doubting myself, shrinking myself, surviving everything, and preparing for disaster that I forgot I’m allowed to simply exist peacefully inside the life I created.

But little by little that’s changing.

One weird Walmart trip, trauma spiral, massage session, maintenance visit, and double cheeseburger at a time.

And now I’m finally sitting at home writing this in the sanctuary I built for myself.

Not an air mattress.

Not survival mode.

Not chaos.

Home.

And speaking of home… home is where the heart is.

For the last two days I’ve been thinking really hard about one of my relationships and how it has always somehow been centered around music.

Songs.

Certain songs instantly bring me back to certain versions of us, certain conversations, certain moments in time, certain emotions, certain stages of growth.

So for the last couple days I’ve been slowly building a playlist that basically tells the story of our friendship and relationship from beginning to now.

And honestly?

Even through the music you can hear the evolution.

The healing.

The growth.

The understanding.

The softness.

The chaos.

The distance.

The reconnection.

It’s all there hidden between lyrics and memories.

I still don’t know if I’m actually gonna send it or not 😂

But apparently this is who I am as a human being.

I don’t know how to do surface level shit.

My brain doesn’t work that way.

Everything means something to me.

Energy means something to me.

Music means something to me.

Growth means something to me.

And maybe that’s part of becoming visible too.

Allowing people to actually see how deeply you love, think, feel, process, and exist instead of constantly trying to water yourself down into something easier for other people to understand.

If your nervous system needs a place to exhale, I offer trauma-informed massage, head spa treatments, and advanced skincare at 888 Spa MN—where real life and real healing meet.