July 20, 2008

• I wish I could just disappear… or do I?

  I’ve been hearing things like this a lot from several people:

  Stop worrying about me.  Don’t think about me. Don’t pay attention to me. I’m nothing special. There’s nothing important about me.  I’m just plain. I’m only ordinary. I just wish people would stop caring about me so much. I wish I could just blend into the crowd. I want to be forgotten. I don’t want to stand out. Stop paying attention to me. Stop wishing me well. I wish everyone would just leave me alone and forget about me. Why do people care so much about me?

  Why can’t I just… disappear?

  I guess I understand where this sentiment is coming from. I suppose I do. It seems easier doesn’t it? Nobody wants to have high expectations placed upon them that they feel they have to live up to and that they fear they might not be able to. Nobody wants to feel bound by these obligations to others that they didn’t ask for because those others decided to put some special stake in them. If we could just be ordinary and simple and blend in then we’d be alright with the things we are going through. Because whatever the outcome we’d know we weren’t disappointing anyone. We’d know we weren’t letting anyone down.

  And we’d know we weren’t responsible for anything either. The impacts of our choices. The changes that other people undergo as a result of knowing us. Or the negative consquences our actions might have on other people’s lives and other people’s thinking. Nobody would care, so nobody would be hurt by us. And nobody could *hurt* us particularly badly either. We don’t exist to them. We’d be safe.

  We’d be free.

  So then you could you know be ok with failing and losing at the things you are striving for. It’d be alright to not succeed if it’s only yourself you are disappointing. And you don’t have to pretend to be happy or sad or put on any kind of a show because there’s nobody else who gives a damn about how you appear. You’re the only one you can disappoint and you’re the only one you can please. That’s sometimes what we want.

  I’ve felt this way too. A little. I’ve felt the burden of external expectations and hopes to get good grades or to be successful or to be happy in life. To get married or to have children. To find a job I love. To make enough money to help people. To be significant to the world and make a difference. I’ve also even felt as if my choices have changed someone for the worse. As if for knowing me their life was worst than it could have been had I just stayed out of his life. Their lives really. It’s happened a number of times. Too many.

  So I can understand where it’s coming from. I think. It sucks to think you are letting anybody down. And worst of all the people you care about. It’d be easier if they just saw you as some sort of insignificant lump of flesh the same as everyone else.  Then when you fail to meet their expectations because you weren’t good enough or weren’t bright enough it won’t be so bad.  Because you were just being yourself and they didn’t want so much more from you.

  But at the same time I can’t really say I like this sentiment. I can’t really relate to it at all. In fact here I’m going to have to diverge from the expectations of anyone who might be reading this and might be thinking up unto this point that I’m going to be a person who can understand them, whom they can relate to.  I’m not. In fact I’m going to be rather belligerent from here on out.  I don’t accept this desire to disappear. I don’t understand it. Not at all.

  You see I just can’t help but wonder if when people say things like this if they really understand what they are asking for? I can’t help but think… do they have any idea what it would really feel like to have their wish be granted? To be really and truly cut off from the good regards, the sentiments, the hopes and fears of others? To be just a faceless member of the crowd wholly forgotten? I don’t think those who hope for it have ever experienced anything like that. I don’t think they’ve even been anywhere close. 

  So I just have to ask sometimes when people say “stop worrying about me” and “I’m nothing special” and “I want to just be ordinary”, I’ve got to ask them…

  Do you really want that?

  Do you have any idea what that really feels like?

  To be that alone?

  Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe some of you know full well what it’s like and still want it anyway. But I can tell you with absolute certainty I *don’t*.  To disappear is in fact and has been for a long long time… my very worst nightmare.

  So for me I say go ahead and worry about me and think about me and give me your regards. Give me your high expectations and your low expectations and your disgust or your love. I don’t want people to think I’m ordinary or insignificant or irrelevant.  I don’t want to blend in. Let me stand out a little. Let me matter to someone. Let me make a difference to someone. Anyone. If even just one person. I couldn’t stand to be forgotten. Please let me never just be forgotten.

  That doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes need to take a vacation. Oh yes I’ve often felt the need to run away from other people’s sight for a while and go off by myself and scream and scream. To run so far that it can at least give me the illusion that I’ve escaped those feelings of my own significance. Sometimes I need to trick myself a little into thinking I’m well not entirely alone… but a little more independent and with a little less others to worry about.

  But to truly be cut off? To not have friends who matter to you and care about you and are always thinking about you? That’s not something that’s easy as all that to walk or run into.

  It isn’t freedom you know.  It doesn’t empower you. It doesn’t make any
  of your hardships easier. It doesn’t make your failures any easier to
  take. Not really. That’s the illusion you feel when you are surrounded by people who care, or at least pretend to care. But it isn’t the truth. Being alone is harder by far. Because then it’s all
  on you. And you become sole owner of your own inadequacies. And there’s
  nobody to lie to you and tell you you’ll be ok.

  I wouldn’t wish that fate upon my worst enemies. If I choose to make it so that someone matters to me, I’ll keep caring about them no matter. And even if they meet my hopes and expectations a thousands time or fail to meet then a billion times, my feelings won’t change at all. I’ll care just as much. I’ll keep rooting for them until the end.

  So I apologize profusely to my friends if they feel as if I am caring too much for them. Paying too much attention. I’m sorry if I’m interfering with your plans to go quietly into the night and vanish without a trace. But I can’t stop caring about any of you just because you tell me to. I won’t. You’ll have to cut me out of your life entirely and banish me from your friendship. And even then… I’ll still care. And I’ll never forget. You just won’t have to hear me say it anymore.

  • 1:55 pm
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