Being Invisible

It is a small fantasy of mine to become invisible. My desire to be unnoticed usually presents itself when the pressures of life bear down on me so much that I instinctually retreat into my subconscious. When I feel the need to withdraw from reality, some aspect of the environment I am in becomes my secret hideaway. If I am in the bathroom washing up, it is down in the shadows between the bottles of moisturizer, shaving cream, and hair gel. If I am in the park, it is the recess between the roots of a large tree. It is usually a place that is small, dark, and cozy. There, I wish I were lying safe, where no one could find me.

My desire to not be found comes from a barely conscious longing to experience the sense of safety I had as a child – to regain the feeling of certain surroundings filling me with comfort and security, as a five year-old who climbs into his parents’ bed after a bad dream. Somewhere in time we lost the inviolable security we had as children, and I often miss it, and resent that I must now take full care of myself.

The inevitability of becoming a noticeable entity that is constantly at the whim of its environment is difficult to accept. Invisibility tempts me with its promise to provide a complete respite from the worries and fears of the outside world. While I do value my self-dependence, sometimes it would just feel good to wrap myself in the security of anonymity, and let everyone and everything go.