Invisible Where I Live

 How the hell can someone live in a house full of people

and still feel more alone than when they’re actually by themselves?

I wake up every day in this house.
Same walls. Same rooms.
Same people moving around me.

I’m not alone.
I’m surrounded.

And somehow, I still feel like I don’t exist.

I’m only visible when something breaks.
When something needs fixing.
Someone can’t find what they lost.

Needs a problem solved, a mess cleaned up,
a target to throw their frustration at.

They call me.
I handle it.
I fix it.

And the second it’s done,
I vanish.

Never a thank you.
No “need a hand?”
Not even a passing thought.

Just the quiet disappearance of me.

I walk through my own house like a ghost—
moving around people who don’t see me unless I’m useful.

But at night—
when the lights are off,
when the TV finally goes quiet,
when everyone else is asleep—
that’s when it changes.

That’s when I don’t feel invisible anymore.

Because that’s when they come.

Soft tiny footsteps.
Warm weight on my legs.
A body pressed against my side.
A head tucked under my chin.

My cats.

They don’t need anything fixed.
They don’t need answers.
They don’t need me to be quieter or easier or less.

They don’t just need me— they want me.

They sit with me when I’m breaking apart.
They call for me when I leave the room.
They look at me with eyes full of unconditional love—
like I’m something to be missed, not just the hand that feeds them.

Most nights, I watch them as they settle in beside me,
their soft weight anchoring me to a world that keeps trying to shake me loose.
It’s quiet. It’s honest. There’s no pretending with them—
no expectation to be anything but here, breathing, broken, just me.
They’re the only proof I have that I’m not completely forgotten.

It’s a strange kind of grief—
Not loud, not sharp, but the quiet weight of knowing:
Every bit of warmth, every unasked-for comfort,
comes from fur and small hearts that never once made me feel like too much or not enough.
They give me everything they have, and I want that to be enough. But it’s not.

And sitting there with that truth, the only living things in this house that love me the way I need to be loved
are my fucking cats—
and I felt it settle in me, quiet and endless, a sadness with no edge, just the ache of knowing this is all there is.

So you start to pull back. You start to go quiet, with each unanswered moment stacking up until you barely notice you’ve stopped trying at all.

And no one else notices either.

That is heartbreaking.

And to not be able to talk to anyone. Not really.

Not even the man that is supposed to be my safe place. My comfort. My home.

That is soul crushing.

Talking to him feels like talking to a record on repeat. The same track playing over and over. I can choose my words carefully, rehearse it a hundred times over, make sure not to blame him, and just explain my feelings. Just to have him listen and be heard. Seen. Just once.

But it always gets twisted into his pain, his feelings, and I’m erased. A little more. Once again.

But I don’t stop trying.

I keep reaching for him, but I fear that one day the hurt’s going to be too much. That I might have to stop trying one day. And start caring for myself first.

But in a single night, one conversation with a friend from back home, a man who knew me before life got so heavy.

He managed to ask me the questions I’ve been screaming in silence for, for months. Questions I thought no one wanted the answers to.

He had no reason to care, but he did.

He sat in it with me, saw me, all of me, and never flinched.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about how long it’s been since anyone close to me has bothered to ask even half of what he did tonight.

I was outside on the deck, wrapped in one of my blankets, still in my cleaning clothes. The little desk lamp was on—just enough light for me to see and get comfortable. It wasn’t cold, not really. Just that early-morning chill with a light breeze that moves slow, like it’s thinking.

The curtains I’ve hung around the couch area were shifting with the wind, making that soft sound I like. Steady. Familiar. Soothing.

I’d gone out there to smoke and maybe try to eat something, and as I set up my laptop and settled in here comes Chloe with her own plans—saw her opportunity and ran off with my chicken fingers like she’d won a prize. She looked so damn proud of herself I couldn’t even be mad. So, I let her have it.

I sat there looking in through the window at the still quiet house thinking. About everything. About nothing.

I had asked him why he was still up and he’d asked me the same. I responded like it was reflex and told him about being stuck in my head. And that’s how it started. I thought that would be the last of that. No one ever followed up after hearing me say anything like that.

But he did. 

He asked me if I wanted to talk about it. Then asked again. 

Not rushing me. 

Just staying.

So I told him. Everything. I told him the truth. That I feel stuck. That I feel erased. That I walk around my life smiling while slowly disappearing.

And in that moment I didn’t feel brave. I felt embarrassed.

Ashamed, really.

The version of me he remembered? She doesn't exist here anymore. The Julie he knew from high school, was loud, sharp tongued, funny, always dancing around. She was carefree. She didn’t sound like this.

And here I was, unloading my life on him like a fucking train wreck.

It felt pathetic. Like I shouldn’t be saying any of this out loud. Like this wasn’t something he should be hearing.

But instead of going quiet or changing the subject like I’d expected—he asked more.

What do you want? What would make you feel fulfilled?

Questions I've never been asked before.

And he made it so easy to answer them. He was just easy to talk to. 

I felt like he could see it was getting heavy for me and he tried to lighten the mood a little—just to make me smile. And it worked. I even let out a chuckle—a real one. Not the polite laugh I use to keep things smooth. It surprised me. I didn’t even recognize the sound at first.

That’s when it hit.

This is all it takes.

Not saving me. Not promising anything. Not even knowing the right thing to say.

Just listening. Just responding. Just letting me exist in that moment without disappearing.

And I fucking lost it.

I sobbed—hard. Like I did back in the beginning when all this started almost 2 years ago. Three in the morning, on the deck, wrapped in a blanket, crying into the dark. Alone.

Except this time I wasn’t.

He was there. Listening to me. Responding to me. Not justifying. Not defending.

And the crying wasn’t just grief.

It was relief.

Because not feeling invisible—even for a moment—felt like everything I thought I’d lost.

And realizing how much that meant hurt almost as much as it helped.

Back when I still drank. I was so way better at faking it. I lied to myself. Convinced myself that I was fine. I’d laugh. Go out. Be social. Be fun.

The alcohol made the pretending believable.

Now? I’m still not happy. The pretending just doesn’t work anymore.

Fun. I don’t even know what that looks like anymore. I can’t remember the last time I really laughed without feeling guilty for it afterward.

When he asked,
What would make you happy?

I knew exactly what and how I could be happy again.
I’ve had it playing in my thoughts for months.

The saddest part about it though?
For me to be happy? Would mean hurting the man I love.
And I won’t do that.
So here I stay.
Stay quiet.
Even when it’s costing every last piece of me that there is left.

Because if I can take away the pain for someone I love, I will every time.

So,

I erase myself slowly, carefully, one unspoken need at a time.

The price of his comfort is me.

Piece by piece, I disappear.

Because that’s when it dawned on me. I was becoming her. The woman people would joke about. The one they would point at and laugh. The “crazy cat lady.”

And maybe I am.

But it’s not crazy.
It’s just what’s left when there’s nothing else soft left in your life.

Because they love me without conditions.
They don’t disappear when I’m hurting.
They don’t dismiss me.
They don’t make me feel like my pain is an inconvenience.

They see me.

And no one else here does.

And at night—when the house finally goes still—when the lights are off and there’s no one left asking anything of me—the only ones who notice. The only ones who come looking. Are my cats.