I have this feeling, an honest feeling that makes me go back to an uncomfortable time in my life: high school. It wasn’t a dreadful experience but it wasn’t always pleasant. I wanted to be liked but I spent most of my four years as a student feeling misunderstood. Yeah I had friends, the ones I kept close I felt “got” me but it still felt like a battle to even be noticed.

Today I feel like that girl stuck in her head so much during high school. True this girl, ME, I did quite a few leaps since then, achieved lots. But beyond the two notches under my belt that are my post high school degrees, I feel unnoticed again and dare I say it, unpopular?

I spend a lot of dedication and time to promote and share my work via social media to virtual friends and followers but the promotion doesn’t seem to be catching on. Is the content not interesting? Are people so damn busy to read a brief poem or a blog post? Have I lost you already?

If you’re still there reading, thank you. I am certain that I don’t NEED likes or shares or views of my work, but it doesn’t hurt to want to feel acknowledged. Everyone’s just too busy. Or are you? What interests you? It’s tough nowadays with how media content is set up. You don’t even really have to read an article seeing as how you read the title and therefore “liked” it. But what about what else it says? As a writer I world like to feel my work is at the very least scanned over and read in enough detail to follow beyond the title.

These honest feelings go beyond being a writer. I think about other people who aim to promote their brand and ideas but with another similar to them it may be hard to stand out. That’s not quite my problem as I know especially with my poetry it is original, fresh and my own style. However, that unpopular invisible cloak I feel draped over me.

I wonder, should I post my work to social media everyday? I already don’t like to overload on all of it as I balance taking in the virtual world in doses. Yes, my desire to be “seen” goes beyond social media because there are other ways to promote. Though this social media piece seems so essential.

Perhaps I’m looking at it all wrong or completely one-sided. But I can’t deny the unpopular feeling. The feeling that as Sonny said to Cologero in A Bronx Tale, “Nobody cares.” I know, I know, this isn’t some coming of age/mob story but I find it has some truth. At the end of everyday people have their “stuff” some even all about “self.” So you can give your all as much as you can but do others really care?

But just like in high school when I lost the class president election to a more popular girl,
even though I had the more powerful speech, raw, honest and a personal “Ask not” JFK touch. I still didn’t win. It would be afterward where many of my peers proclaimed to me that I should’ve won, even Mr. Fields an administrator at the school who called me into his office after the decision was made. He told me I was robbed and I had the better speech but that it was unfortunate how the votes went. Even though I felt defeated I rose to the occasions of being one of the top students of my class, a book scholarship for college, and made myself proud through college. Graduate school wasn’t half bad either.

So maybe I am not “well known” or sometimes overlooked, I’m still here hustling and growing. I have to make myself understand life isn’t a popularity contest. It’s my own vote and voice that counts.

From my heart to yours,

-Lish