First, what stage of life is this? Is this the middle-aged stage? the retirement stage? the what do I want to do with the rest of my life stage? Or are these all the same stage? I have more questions than answers at this point and when I was younger and wanted to be older, I would have thought that this was the stage of certainty. I thought that as I got older I would know what I wanted, who I was, where I should be, what I should be doing. So I am not sure how I got here, because I am not sure where here is.
I know where I have been. I have been a child, a student, a teacher, a researcher, a grasper after achievement, someone who has always searched for love, validation, appreciation. And no matter how much of it I get, I never think I get much. I never think I have done enough. I never think that anyone thinks that well of me.
So I am still at the stage where I wonder when people will find out that I am not. Not what? Not as smart as I would like to be, not as competent, not as anything. But then, I know they think that anyway. I know that they forget me if i don't remind them I am here.
So maybe my stage is invisible. Maybe that has always been my stage. But maybe, for the most part, we are mostly visible to ourselves because everyone else is concentrating on making themselves visible too.
In that case, we are all at the same stage. Maybe unlike Shakespeare's seven stages of man, which are for the most part physical, there really is only one stage, the stage of constantly striving to be visible, and that is a never-ending journey. Until, of course, the end, when the journey is over for good, and we are forever invisible.
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