If I had my way, which I occasionally would like to have and yet never ever do, I’d disappear. I would be like one of those people who, one day, walks out of the house and nobody hears from her again. Ever. I know that very often we stress that someone who has been reported missing has been abducted, and this is, sadly, often the case insofar as children and young people and women are concerned, but there are also people, and there have always been people, who actively want to start their life afresh and they do so by leaving with just the clothes on their back [and possibly some cash and a passport, surely].
I am one of those people, someone who has spent decades pleasing every man and woman and his dog and her cat and who, as of late, has been wondering whether she could finally enjoy some well-earned rest, away from everything and absolutely everyone, particularly all of these people who take so much fucking headspace, so much of my time, my willingness to be helpful and decent, and my ability [and I really do not know where it comes from], to fly high above their pettiness by saying nothing at all.
But being like this comes with its downsides and certainly chief amongst them is the fact that I never feel at peace or even in peace. There is always a fucking delivery to let in, a surveyor or arial man or plumber or electrician to let in, or a dog [albeit not my own] to walk or look after, or a dinner to say yes to, or a request to say yes to, or a fill-in-the-blank. You name it. I’ve had it.
I know you may be sitting there thinking that, as I posted I had a simply atrocious day yesterday, which I absolutely did, I am probably still operating on the same wavelength. Not really, no. I am very clear as to where feelings and impressions and actual facts and events sit on a graph depicting my days, and I am not imagining anything. Whilst it is true that the feelings of overwhelm are just that, feelings, they are also rooted in real hard facts, and it would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise.
For some reasons, and perhaps December has something to do with it or possibly the end of the year in a more generic sense than simply the festive season, or perhaps the fact that 2024, whilst not being brutal, has been as unkind as one could have struggled to foresee, it is all happening right now and if I had the opportunity to walk outta door right this second, never once glancing back but only forward, I’d take it.