vapor

I’m forgettable.

I don’t mean that as a plea for attention or reassurance; In fact, it’s a trait I’ve more or less worked to cultivate. I’ve always tried to make myself small, to stay out of the way, to avoid making a scene. Anxiety rules my life, and the easiest way to avoid an anxious situation is to be unremarkable and unnoticed.

I also spent fourteen years with an EXTREMELY memorable partner. Before then, I had a series of boyfriends who were equally popular. If you met my last partner once, you remembered him forever. He took up space. He looked very recognizable. He was just memorable. It was something that I for the most part appreciated, I could use him as a social shield. But it also contributed to a problem I’d already been facing when I got in to that relationship – A lacking sense of self. Everyone in our social circle, every stranger we met, everyone remembered him, and I was “his wife.” I didn’t really have any identity of my own to those people.

So much so, that when he wasn’t with me, people did not recognize me. Even people I’d met multiple times. This did start to get to me after a while. If someone did recognize me, they’d say “Hey! You’re such-and-such’s wife!” It started to become a source of frustration after a while.

I don’t think about that much anymore, I don’t encounter people who do that much anymore. I think the people that would have said that have since forgotten me, which is ok. I don’t remember them either. I’ve probably bumped in to plenty of people I’ve met before and didn’t have a clue. On a few occasions, I’d meet someone I’m certain I’d met before, but they didn’t place me at all. I was a stranger. That’s ok.

I thought about it today though. My neighborhood has a yearly festival, and it’s big. We did not have one the past two years due to Covid, but today was the first day of the festival again. In the past, when we’d walk around, we’d get stopped over and over again by people wanting to catch up. I did not remember most of these people, and they only knew me by association, but they’d see by husband and instantly recognize him.

Today, I walked around for hours, and I did not recognize anyone. And nobody recognized me. Only one person noticed me, a friend and client of mine, and I was excited to catch up briefly. But as I wandered, I wondered how many of these people I’d met before and did not remember, how many had met me but no longer remembered me.

Dwelling on that stirred up some uncomfortable feelings, and normally when I start typing I can place them and analyze them, but it’s not really coming to me here. I’d very intentionally cultivated this easy to forget identity, but I’ve also never been alone. It’s always been like I was a moon orbiting a much stronger force, but that ability to be completely unseen and unnoticed really sits differently when you’re always alone.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt remorse about being unmemorable, it’s been a great comfort in the past. But it’s not sitting as comfortably as it used to. I’m starting to feel sad by the idea that nobody would remember me if I was gone. I’m starting to really dwell on what about me is so unremarkable. When you say something like that, people who care about you will come out of the woodwork to tell you all of the amazing things about you, but I dwell on how many other people offer the same things they’re praising about me. How long my loss would leave a hole in them if I vanished, when so many other people can easily fill that void.

That desire to be unnoticed comes from a desire to avoid obligations. Obligations are my major source of stress, of anxiety. A fear of letting people down is easy to avoid if nobody asks you for anything. And I don’t want to change that, I don’t think my mental health is at a point where I can take adding more obligations to my life without the stress overwhelming me. I’m not sure it ever will be, some people just can’t deal with some things and that’s a thing I struggle with. But that makes me further dwell – I am only known for what I can provide to other people? Is that how it works for everyone? I can’t imagine so, I dwell on many, many people from the past who had nothing to offer me. But when I think of the holes I would leave, I mostly think of my coworkers. Of the burden that would cause in my workplace. Half of the people at my funeral would be coworkers, and even then, they’d mostly be there out of a sense of obligation.

I hate ‘relationships by obligation.’ The idea that you’re maintaining a bond due to guilt, or because you may need something from the other party, or because you know it’s expected of you. Even with family, I’ve always thought that was bullshit. When I think people maintain a connection with me for a reason like that, I cut them out. I burn that bridge, I don’t want it.

I don’t know what I hoped to achieve by writing these thoughts down. I guess I was hoping to have some revelations. Or at least trying to sooth the anxiety attack that’s been slowly creeping up my throat all day about not being wanted by anyone around me. I don’t think it’s served any cathartic purpose though. Maybe I can look back on it later and form some new thoughts.

I wonder if any of the people from my past who I still dwell on spare me a thought on occasion. I have to become ok with the fact that I’ll never know the answer to that.