Eliza Reid

I went horseback riding.

I went whale watching.

I ate all kinds of cutrid shark and fish soup.

I met Björk and Loive.

But all of a sudden, I was thrust onto the national stage as somebody's wife.

And although I'm incredibly proud to be Goodney's wife, I wouldn't necessarily say that's my defining characteristic as a human being.

And I noticed right away these tiny little niggling things that would happen that felt as if my own identity had been subsumed under his greater persona.

Just tiny little things like we would show up together at a grand opening and there'd be a photo on the cover of the newspaper the next day and the photo caption would simply say, President attends.

Or when I did go to events, I wasn't asked about my opinions on things, I was asked what I was wearing or who was looking after the kids right now.

One day we were hosting a reception at the presidential residence and there's always a receiving line that you go through and this gentleman came in and he shook my husband's hand and then I don't know where there was kind of overwhelming to meet the president of the country or he was excited about the bubbly that he was about to get in the next room or he simply didn't see the five foot six human being standing next to the president.

But for whatever reason, he came in, he shook my husband's hand and then he walked right on past me

into the other room.

And this happened a few times at that reception and at other receptions.

And at each time I had stood there, smile at the ready, hand outstretched, and then each time they would go past me, I would sort of withdraw my hand thinking, I mean, they didn't really need to meet me, did they?

Now I know this was unintentional.

Nobody chose to say, ha ha, we're going to stick it to Eliza by not greeting her.

But each little unintentional ghosting represented this little grain of sand that added to this growing nugget of self-doubt that maybe I didn't quite belong there or I wasn't doing this by the right rules.

And of course, I didn't tell anybody because it's the tiniest of gripes that somebody didn't shake my hand.

In fact, I was more angry at myself, thinking, why is this bugging me?

The person's already shaken the hand of the head honcho.