There’s something about whispers; they’re quiet, almost weightless, but they linger. For the early part of my life, I was the whisper, the girl on the edges, feeling as if I was unseen and unheard, while building entire worlds inside my mind.

This is a story about that girl and the invisible bubble I once lived inside, the fears that kept me silent, and the journey toward finally breaking free.

There was a time when I lived inside my own head, a world stitched together with fantasy, adventure, and friends who only existed because I said so. My friends were ones that I created inside my mind.

In the real world, that was a different story. Words felt like wild creatures, untamed and unpredictable, just waiting to trip me up the second I let them loose. So, I kept them locked away, whispering instead to the characters I built in my mind. 

I was the quiet girl, the observer, the master of slipping unnoticed through a crowd. Unbeknownst to others, I was also the kid who could craft an entire kingdom out of thin air but couldn’t muster the courage to say hello without overthinking it ten times first. And if someone dared to get too close, try to step inside my bubble, talk to me, or even smile at me, I freaked out. Because my world existed between the pages of books that I read voraciously, between thoughts that drifted like dreamscapes through my mind, between the very real fear that I wouldn’t know what to do or say if a real person actually saw me, and even more terrifying, wanted to get close to me. 

And then came the boy that I admired from a safe, comfortable distance. He was golden in all the ways I felt invisible, the kind of person who seemed effortlessly part of the real world while I was still figuring out how to step into it. Admiration was easy from afar, until a friend told him I liked him. And instead of that dreamy, storybook romance my imagination had carefully crafted, reality smacked me in the heart. Because the second he actually tried to talk to me, I froze. 

Not shy in a cute way. Not mysterious in a brooding, poetic, heroine kind of way. Just full-blown deer-in-headlights-can’t-process-human-interaction sort of way. And because of my frozen reaction, he thought I didn’t like him. 

This was a turning point, when hiding was no longer safe and comfortable but had become more like a self-imposed prison. From that point on, I knew things had to change. I didn’t realize that the road ahead of me was a long and difficult one.

Years later, that silence is gone. The quiet girl has found her voice. It turns out, I had a lot to say. But the whispers? They still linger, weaving themselves into the stories I tell, the spaces between words where imagination never truly fades. 

Q&A

1. Have you ever felt like you lived more inside your imagination than in reality? How did that shape you?
2. Was there a moment when you realized you had to step outside of your “bubble” and be seen? What happened?
3. How has shyness played a role in your life? Did it hold you back or become part of your strength?
4. What would you say if you could go back and give your younger self advice about courage and connection?
5. Do you ever feel echoes of childhood emotions in how you interact with people today?

Ledia Runnels (No longer feeling invisible) 💕

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