Disappearing Act

Sometimes I would just like to disappear. Not go off on some vacation or anything, but just disappear. Voila! I especially feel that way when I remember something really stupid I have done---like when a friend offered to bring meatballs to an Open House and I didn’t remember that she had offered. Then as we were getting the food tables all set up and they were immensely crowded and the friend called to say that the meatballs were ready and she’d bring them over, I let the other friend who was trying to arrange the space on the tables convince me to say, “No, we can’t use the meatballs!”…...Well, when I remember thoughtless things like that that I have done, that’s when I imagine myself just slipping off my chair as I slowly diminish and then by the time my body hits the wall, I am gone. Totally disintegrated. No more. That sounds very inviting.

Other things can make me feel like disappearing—Mothers Day at church, for example. Well, to be truthful, Mothers Day and I have finally come to an understanding. But I feel like disappearing right now. One of my children is lying in bed and it is after 11:00 in the morning and the cleaners who only come every other week are ready to clean his room but he won’t let them in and his room is atrocious. He says he will clean it himself, but he won’t. It’s not the room so much that makes my disappearing act so appealing. It’s what the room stands for. It’s what the body still in bed stands for. It’s the opportunities missed, the life not fully lived yet. My soul aches. And I want to slowly slide off my chair and disappear.