Created June 23, 2012 Vanishing

Lately it has occurred to me that I have been vanishing for years. Every once in a while, in my current existence, it comes over me that I’m not who I am. I really don’t know what to make of this at times. I think I remember being someone many years ago – just exactly when I do not know, but I feel in my bones that I must have existed at one point – a whole, real person, capable of so much, having the potential of so much, and now I’ve vanished myself from my life. I am unrecognizable to myself. In the mirror, I wonder who that is, looking back.

This didn’t happen all at once, of course. These things take time. Just like the “Invisible Man” the vanishing comes over you slowly – at first a small part of you and then another, until you’re just not there anymore.

I did this repeatedly in my career. In all the jobs I had and then left, never once was there any party, or cake, or drinks, or congenial good-byes – I just packed up and disappeared. Sometimes I wondered why this was so. Perhaps I knew instinctively that merely being gone was the best course for me emotionally. I preferred to merely vanish, without a trace. Perhaps I did not care about my colleagues, although I do not think this was so. I think of them still, and it has been years, nay, decades, since I've seen them. But I kept them all at arm’s length, so I would not be seen for who I was, or was not. Never permitting anyone to be in the position of actually caring about my departure was the surest way of avoiding what I knew would be a scene I did not desire. Sentiment I did not want made public, pain I did not want, and wanted no one to see. The pain of my final departure from the workforce - of identity, of larger purpose, of situational camaraderie - was merely for myself.

In these jobs, at least in the beginning, I was the person people would come to with their issues and problems. I was trusted. I had their respect. They were open with me. I did not reciprocate. I held closely my truths and my experience and my pain and held myself separate and apart from them all so no one would really see what was left of me. As I gave them no chance at all to ever truly care, they never really did. In this way, I became, over time, almost immune from human contact. I just vanished from their lives, leaving no lasting impact.

I never was able to make real friends at my places of work - a holdover, I think, of my mother's admonition never be close to work colleagues as they could then use their knowledge against you. That must have been her experience - in fact, I'm sure of it - she told me as much. As it turned out, it was also my job experience in high school, as I was accused of all sorts of things because of my friendship with the only person I liked at my job one summer as a hotel maid. She was black and the only person of color on the staff. She was kind and nice and my friendship with her was the downfall of my “career” as a maid. After she and I were friendly enough to eat lunch together every day, the others found ways to make my rooms fail inspection - peeing in the toilets, leaving garbage in the cans I had emptied. Soon after, she told me that we should no longer be friends, for my sake. I objected, but finally capitulated. Then I had no one to eat lunch with.

I was, in addition to being a maid, promoted to a part-time position at the front desk of the hotel (likely the result of my father's prominence in the community) and found I was also unacceptable there. Not only because I had the position, but because I objected to the other front desk personnel renting a completely unsuitable room. Of course, they rented it, and later had to give the guest a credit to be used at other Holiday Inns because of its poor condition. It was rancid with the smell and presence of mold to the extent I was gagged by it - and I knew, having cleaned it myself. Why the guests didn't complain immediately and get a different room is beyond me.

I also did this “vanishing act” with my “family of origin” as it is so clinically phrased. Or perhaps they started me down the path of undertaking the process. I think I existed when very young, but as my closest friends at that time were imaginary, I really can’t be sure. What I do know was that I was marginalized by them all – father, brother, mother, each in their own way. With enough marginalization, one can begin the process of becoming, or wanting to become, invisible. This process ebbs and flows; at times you are real, and at times you are not entirely there. Some emotions or situations make you feel more real, others have the opposite effect.

I was real with my adopted families - the Rs and the Bs and the Ms. Their daughters were my closest friends and one remains so to this day. One has completely dropped out of my life, another is sporadically visible to me. But I am fortunate that one remains - how many people can say they have had a constant and loyal friend for almost 50 years?

Unfortunately, I also vanished from my own family. Choosing my husband and his needs over my children, I vanished from them, to my everlasting and punishing regret. But it was not always so. I recall so many years and so many experiences I had with them! We were so close! And I love them so much, even now, when my prior actions have pushed them away. I recall many times when my children were young and I was very real. Sometimes the three of us would be approached by people at McDonalds and in airports who assumed that I was a single parent. Essentially, I was, for those years when they were young and I was real.