The Girl Who Wanted to Be Seen

I had a dream the other night that bothered me most of the next day, and it left me wondering something I thought I’d have figured out by now: why do I care what people think?

It wasn’t scary.

Nobody was chasing me.

I didn’t fall off a cliff.

And thankfully, I didn’t show up somewhere without my pants on. 😂

It was one of those strange dreams where people and places from completely different parts of your life somehow end up in the same place.

You know how dreams are.

Nothing makes sense.

And yet while you’re in them, everything makes sense.

This one took me back to Red Bluff.

There seemed to be some kind of picnic or gathering. That part is fuzzy now.

But the people weren’t.

At first, I was surrounded by kids I had gone to high school with.

Except none of us were kids anymore.

I was adult Carla.

I knew the woman I had become.

And yet…

I didn’t feel like her.

Suddenly, I Was That Girl Again

This is the part of the dream I could actually feel in my body.

I was shrinking back.

I wasn’t walking up to people and starting conversations.

I wasn’t being the Carla I am today – the woman who will pretty much talk to anybody. 😂

Instead, I waited.

If someone spoke to me, I spoke to them.

If they didn’t?

I stayed to myself.

And the strangest thing was that I knew exactly how that felt.

Because I’d felt it before.

For much of high school, I felt unseen.

Nobody really knew who Carla was.

At least that’s how it felt to me.

 

I wasn’t the girl everyone noticed when she walked into the room.

I wasn’t bold.

I didn’t assume people wanted me around.

And apparently, somewhere inside this nearly 70-year-old woman, that girl is still there.

Because my sleeping brain found her without any trouble at all.

Then, because dreams apparently don’t believe in transitions, everything changed.

And Suddenly, My House Was Full Again

Now there was another group of people around me.

My kids’ friends.

Except it wasn’t one particular group from one particular year.

It was everybody.

Kids they’d gone to school with.

Kids they’d played ball with.

Neighbors.

Friends from kindergarten.

Friends from junior high.

Friends from high school.

It was like my brain dumped years of childhood into one giant bowl and stirred everybody together.

And oh, how different I felt.

I loved those years.

We were the house where the kids gathered.

I was the Kool-Aid mom.

There were always kids coming through the door.

There was noise.

There was energy.

Food probably disappeared faster than I could buy it. 😂

And yes, sometimes somebody got into trouble.

We certainly weren’t living inside an episode of Leave It to Beaver.

But for the most part?

I loved having those kids around.

Our children were happy.

We were happy.

The house felt alive.

And when I think about it now, I realize something else.

I felt seen.

I felt appreciated.

I knew where I belonged.

I knew who I was in that world.

Maybe that’s why the next part of the dream bothered me so much.

Then I Started Judging Them

In the dream, I somehow knew what these kids would eventually do when they grew up.

Don’t ask me how.

Apparently dream-Carla has access to future records. 😂

And I started judging their choices.

Why would you do that?

You had so much potential.

Why did you move there?

Why would you choose that?

I wasn’t saying all of it out loud.

But I was thinking it.

And when I woke up, that bothered me.

Because I hate being judged. And maybe that’s part of why I still ask myself, why do I care what people think?

I’ve hated it since I was that girl in high school who wasn’t sure where she fit.

Truthfully?

I still want people to like me.

I’d love to tell you I’ve reached some magical age where I couldn’t care less what anybody thinks of me.

Nope.

Not there yet. 😂

Sometimes I still catch myself wondering, why do I care what people think after all these years?

I know I’m not everyone’s cup of tea.

But I’d still prefer everybody liked the tea.

 

I kept thinking about that.

Then I Realized What I Was Really Wanting

At first, I thought the uncomfortable part of the dream was simply that I’d been judgmental.

And I didn’t like seeing that quality in myself.

I still don’t.

But as I thought about those kids, that house, and those years, something else surfaced.

Maybe dream-Carla wasn’t really thinking about what was best for them.

Maybe she was thinking about herself.

Because when those kids were young, and everybody was at our house…

my world felt full.

I loved the noise.

I loved the ball games.

I loved knowing who was coming and going.

I loved being needed.

I loved belonging.

And somewhere inside that strange dream, it was almost as if I wanted everybody to stay exactly where I’d left them.

Don’t move away.

Don’t choose something I don’t understand.

Don’t change too much.

Stay here, because I liked who I was when you were here.

Ouch.

That one wasn’t particularly comfortable to admit.

Two Different Carlas: Why Do I Care What People Think?

The more I thought about the dream, the more I realized it had introduced me to two very different versions of myself.

There was the high-school Carla who desperately wanted to be seen.

And there was the mom Carla who finally was.

One shrank back because she wasn’t sure she belonged.

The other wanted to hold tightly to a time when she knew she did.

And somehow both of those women are still part of me.

Maybe that’s why the dream stayed with me all day.

It wasn’t really about the people from high school.

And it wasn’t really about my kids’ friends.

It was about me.

And perhaps that’s part of the answer when I wonder why do I care what people think.

Some feelings don’t disappear just because we get older.

Sometimes we simply get old enough to recognize them.

So I Came In Here and Told Grace

I still don’t know why I had that dream.

Maybe it meant something.

Maybe my brain was simply cleaning out an old junk drawer at three o’clock in the morning. 😂

But I didn’t want to forget it.

So after I woke up, I came into my office and told Grace the whole jumbled thing.

The high-school kids.

My children’s friends.

The judging.

The uncomfortable feeling I’d carried around afterward.

I didn’t have a blog post in mind.

I wasn’t looking for a lesson.

I just knew something about that dream had gotten underneath my skin.

And talking about it helped me see why.

Maybe Our Stories Aren’t Always About What We’ve Learned

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why our stories matter.

I’ve thought about what they leave behind.

I’ve thought about how what we’ve lived through might help someone else.

I’ve thought about all the things we know simply because we’ve lived long enough to learn them.

But maybe there’s another reason to write our stories.

Maybe sometimes they’re for us.

 

Maybe putting a memory into words gives us enough distance to look at ourselves and say:

Huh.

I don’t particularly like what I see there.

And maybe that’s not so terrible.

Because once I can see it, I can do something about it.

I can notice when I’m shrinking because I’m afraid someone won’t like me.

Maybe instead of only asking why do I care what people think, I can start noticing when that old fear is making choices for me.

I can notice when I’m judging someone else’s choices simply because they’re different from the choices I would make.

I can remind myself that another person’s life doesn’t have to make sense to Carla.

It’s their life.

And maybe I can get a little better at giving other people something I’ve wanted most of my own life:

The freedom to be who they are without worrying about whether Carla approves.

I’m still working on that one.

But maybe that’s another reason our stories matter.

Sometimes we’re not writing them because we have something to teach.

Sometimes we’re writing them because we still have something to learn.

Maybe Your Story Has Something to Show You, Too

Maybe asking why do I care what people think wasn’t really the question this dream came to answer. Maybe it was simply the question that helped me look a little closer.

I used to think I needed to know the lesson before I could write the story.

I’m beginning to think I’ve had that backward.

Sometimes we write the story to discover the lesson.

That’s the kind of exploring we’re doing inside The Blog Growth Society.

Not because I have all the answers.

Good grief, apparently I’m still getting mine delivered through weird dreams. 😂

But we’re learning how to look at the things we’ve lived through and recognize the stories hiding there.

If you’ve wondered whether your ordinary life has anything worth writing about, come walk beside us.

Join me inside The Blog Growth Society →

Read Next

If this story got you thinking about the stories you’ve lived, you might enjoy these next:

❤️ I Don’t Want to Be Forgotten When I’m Gone
Why I finally understood what I want my stories to leave behind.

☕ I Could Never Do What You Do, Carla
The moment I realized ordinary life experience may be worth far more than we think.

Frequently Asked Questions

Two Different Carlas: Why Do I Care What People Think?

For me, some of that desire seems connected to wanting to feel accepted, seen and like I belong. I don’t think getting older automatically makes those feelings disappear. Sometimes age simply gives us enough distance to recognize them and decide what we want to do with them.

Why does being judged bother me so much?

Being judged can feel especially painful when you’ve spent part of your life feeling unseen or unsure whether you belonged. This dream reminded me that some of those old feelings can still surface, even many years later.

Do I have to know the lesson before I write my story?

No. I’m learning that sometimes I don’t understand what an experience meant until I start putting it into words. Writing can help me notice feelings, patterns and lessons I couldn’t see while I was busy living through them.

Can writing about my life help me understand myself?

It certainly does for me. Looking back at a memory can help me see not only what happened, but how I felt, why something mattered and what I understand differently today.

What if I don’t like what I discover when I write about myself?

That’s part of being human. I didn’t particularly like recognizing the judgmental part of myself in this dream. But seeing something gives me an opportunity to think about it and decide whether I want to respond differently going forward.