As a young third culture kid I often felt…misunderstood. Unseen. To my Nigerian peers, I was (for the most part) just another expatriate living in their country. Not quite fully belonging. To my American peers, I was a little bit weird. A little bit behind. Not quite one of them. And even amongst my fellow third culture peers, I always felt out of place. Misunderstood. Unseen.

I took my invisibility with me over the ocean when I left Nigeria at the age of eighteen. I carried it throughout my college years as I struggled to find my voice. To find my people. But nothing stuck. My voice faded and so did my friendships. Still misunderstood. Still unseen.

In my husband I found a deep friendship that fought to see me. He fought hard. (He still does.) But then I was pregnant and the isolation hit. None of our friends had children at that time, so we were immediately hurtled into a space that was deserted and confusing for us both. Our friends moved ahead with their lives, while we diverted down the joyous (yet desperately isolated) road of parenting. But I sunk much deeper into the loneliness than I could have expected, falling away from Jon. Falling away from our new daughter. Falling away from everything.

A part of me did eventually begin to surface, but not all of me. Not really.

As our family continued to grow and Jon became increasingly busier, I threw everything I had into being a mother. I spent every waking hour with our babies, as well as every sleepless night. Some nights their bodies cuddled in our bed next to me, other nights I was in their beds—reading one last story, singing one last song, rubbing their backs until they fell asleep—and many nights I spent on the floor, laying next to their bed, holding their hand.

I was mama, but Martha was still trying to find her voice in the chaos and in the quiet. Still invisible. Still unseen.

I poured so much of myself into my children’s lives as little ones that now as teenagers I feel completely emptied. I feel desperately inadequate. They pull away from me, as teenagers do, and I have no idea how to reach across that distance and bring them back. I have no idea how to let them know that I see them. I have no idea what words to say. And every time I do reach out, I’m reminded of just how far away they have moved from my grasp. With each day that passes I feel myself falling away again, from everything. Deeper this time. Much, much deeper.

Today I find myself looking in the mirror at a stranger. She looks like me, but I don’t know her. I don’t even like her, really. She has wandered down a thousand paths, grasping for her voice, desperate to find something that helps all of the falling away and the loneliness make sense. Something she can grasp confidently amongst the ashes strewn behind her, some way she can feel known, if only to herself. I stare at the brown eyes looking back at me now, trace the age lines appearing, each one marking a decade I barely remember. A series of moments piling much too quickly into years that I can never reclaim.

Martha, moving perpetually from one state of isolation to another, never truly being seen. Not even by herself.

I did look for her…I did try. Really, I did. But in all those years and through all those moments and amidst all that uncertainty, I guess I never did find her.

One day, I know I will. At least, I hope I will. One day I hope I can sift through all of these moments and realize they were a beautiful story all along. And I will find myself amongst its pages and I will smile. But in the meantime, I’m trying to learn to love that stranger in the mirror. One age-line at a time.