To Be Loved is to be seen

To be loved is to be seen.

I pushed the door open to my favorite lunch spot as a group of teenage girls made their way out. One girl was laughing, shaking her head.

“Thanks for the coffee, I guess, but when do I tell him I’ve literally never liked coffee. I’ve genuinely told him that before. He has been there when I have opted out of coffee. But thank you!”

Her friends echoed her laughter. The girl stopped laughing first though.

She wasn’t angry - it was funny.

The laughter just caught in her throat when she pictured him tuning her out as she ordered her drink last week, opting to scroll through his phone, instead. Or when he told her he picked out the pink socks instead of the green ones at the store, and she hugged him in her green sweater with matching green shoes and green hair ties.

He had gotten her a gift, after all. How was he supposed to know she had been sleeping in green bedsheets since she was seven? She had said thank you.

She just wanted to be seen. 

I think about that girl a lot.

I recently watched The Notebook for the first time. With Valentine’s Day approaching, it would be sinful for me not to pass along my strongest recommendation. The movie tore me apart. You may not understand this now, stop reading if you are weary of even the slightest of spoilers, but he builds her a white house with blue shutters and a room overlooking the river so that she can paint. He also added a big old porch that wraps around the entire house, so that she can drink tea and watch the sun go down. She had told him about these features many years ago, in response to a question he had asked her in passing. He probably would have brought her out her tea as the sun set over the river, never once mistaking her for someone who likes coffee. That is to be seen.

On my birthday, I make people go around the dinner table and say their favorite thing about me.

Is that normal? I’m not sure.

Yes, I love the attention, but what I love most is when someone says something I don’t suspect. When someone tells me that they like the way my eyes scrunch closed when I laugh, or how I play with my rings when I’m nervous, it means something deeper. They have captured me from their perspective. They have seen me and held on to it. Maybe it is narcissistic to be asking people that question, but it’s my birthday. It’s my favorite gift.

I couldn’t put it in words before stumbling across the phrase: “To be loved is to be seen”. Seen.

For an emotion that has driven all of humanity to be succinctly wrapped in a bow, as tiny as a four-letter meaning, is astonishing. It’s a job well done. There is no better feeling than when a friend sends you a song that they know you would like - and you like it. When someone notices that you got the faintest trim to your hair. When amidst a world so busy with noise and flashes, when there are a million different directions to look, someone chooses to look at you, to see you. That is to be loved.

Strike Out,

Avery Southam

University of Notre Dame