How to Disappear Yourself & Return

For those longing for escape — and those longing to be seen again

In the beginning, I didn’t disappear myself on purpose. I sought out solitude, luxuriated in silence. When I couldn’t leave, I learned to slip away inside my head while staying in the room with an enigmatic smile. Classic Mona Lisa.

It was easier not to show myself, not to be seen if being seen meant being taken apart with his careless words. I ran out of room under the rug and began sweeping things into corners and corridors. I needed to take up less space to allow for all the things I couldn’t acknowledge, so I did. I made myself disappear in my own life and then wondered how anyone could contain such silent screaming. An Edvard Munch imitation.

To disappear oneself is more art than science, but it goes a little like this:

We give over our own interests in favor of another’s. Sometimes, slowly. Sometimes, a rapid drop. We champion their interests and let our own fall away, giving up our identity in the process. By the time we realize we’ve lost ourselves, we don’t know who we are anymore anyway.

We lose our voice. Or we give it away. We stop speaking up about what’s bothering us. We learn it’s easier to go with the flow, even if it’s drowning us.

We accept the loss of the life we wanted in exchange for the life we have. It was not the life I had planned for myself — not even a shadow of it. But to extricate myself from it required the energy I needed to disappear myself and survive.

We die quietly while living every day. It’s funny almost how no one even notices. How the mysterious smile is enough to convince them it’s a real one.

But to disappear oneself is a dangerous game to play. At first, it feels like safety — a corridor of strong doors with heavy bolts, places to run to, places to hide. But later, it begins to feel like what it is — a prison of our own making. We long to reappear — to see and be seen, to love and be loved, and to live our lives.

So, we work very hard at the art of intentionally living the life we’d once longed to escape from:

We remember who we are. It comes back to us in flashes and sharp longing. We recover our interests or develop new ones.

We speak our truth — no matter the consequences. Taking apart the world we knew requires speaking up. It means upsetting the status quo. It means seeing the truth we’ve been denying and then doing something about it. It means refusing to back down because it makes someone else uncomfortable.

We never surrender to a life that is less than what we want to be living. We accept responsibility for the choices we made, but we begin to make new ones. We don’t settle anymore for less than we want. We demand more.

We live well and create the life that we need. We make intentional choices. We build lives we love.

Of course, along the way are innumerable choices. We say no more often and more forcefully. We say yes with delicious abandon. We shake the very foundations of the life we had before in order to create something extraordinary — even if it’s ordinary to anyone else. We don’t ask for permission to live our own lives. We live them boldly and proudly and fiercely. Without apologies.

We leave behind the narrow corridors with their heavy doors, throw open doors and windows, and emerge into the sun. We appear again — vibrant in our own lives even when it’s hard. We withstand. We endure.

Sometimes, I still seek out solitude and luxuriate in silence. But disappearing inside my own life is no longer a risk I’m willing to take. And so, I learn to care for myself gently during the darker days, and I learn to be bold when boldness is required. I am not a wallflower anymore; I am the sun. And I’ll keep rising, until my work is done.