Going Missing

 

For a television season or two, during the late 00s, on Sunday evenings, CBS used to air the television shows Cold Case and Without a Trace back to back.  I will not go into the quality of these shows, or a breakdown of them in any fashion.  I had consistently watched both of them prior to their pairing.  I liked them both.  I liked the idea of Cold Case and how they would pair music from the time of the unsolved murder in the flashback scenes.  I always thought that would’ve been a fun job.  Wish I had thought of it.  Without A Trace was always intriguing to me, because I have always been incredibly fascinated by the idea of going missing without a trace.

Sundays have been important days for me since I was in High School.  Back then it was my music day.  I remember doing my school work mostly on that day, while listening to my most recent music discoveries and reading books about music.  Then in the evenings, I would listen to my favorite new music radio shows, before tuning in to MTVs 120 minutes for more music.  The main thread here, is that I would spend the day alone, focusing on enjoying my interests.  They were days where I would recharge.  Ever since, I have tried to keep that tradition alive.  I am slow to make plans for activities or social things on Sundays, because of this.  However, as a mostly Monday through Friday worker bot, over the years, Sundays became a day of dread.  Here I would be dedicated to languishing in my pursuits, all while trying to ignore the building dread in my gut about the idea of returning to work the next day.  One day, perhaps I will try to explore this mindset of not living in the moment, and focusing on only the negative side of things, but that time is not now.

For about a year, my Sunday evenings would end with a double TV shot of Cold Case followed by Without A Trace.  There was something satisfying about the two shows that quelled some of that work dread and always had me feeling all kinds of things about life.  I don’t know why, but I think it was the sheer sadness that came from both shows.  Both shows always centered around investigations where each victim’s life is uncovered and we get to learn about all of the horrible shit in their lives.  All of their bad relationships, hidden pain, and their dark secrets.  I guess I found it grounding to see that we’re all effed up in different ways.  It also taught me to truly realize that everyone has their issues and to be more understanding in general. 

A few years ago, I wrote about my strange fascination with a local missing person case (Jennifer, She Said), where I touched on how I identified with her case, and I still feel it in a way that makes me a little nervous.  I don’t think I have the courage or the whereabouts to go missing.  Without A Trace was a perfect show for me. It was generally tragic and sad, it contained all kinds of unresolved emotions, and it tugged at my odd desire to go missing.  Unfortunately, the missing I want to go, is one where I am also unaware of the details, so I can enjoy the mystery. Where there are people looking at clues from your life and finding importance in them, when literally no one else ever would.

 In a sense, I have gone missing before.  There were times, during my dialysis years, where I would be hospitalized for up to a week, and would not alert anyone, besides my workplace, and even then, not always.  You know what?  It was never a big deal.  My lack of communication was mostly a case of sheer laziness, and most of the time, no one noticed.  There was no FBI investigation.  There weren’t any panicked phone calls from family or friends wondering what happened to me, or even why my car hadn’t moved from a strip mall parking lot for five days and nights. 

Truly, I do not understand my interest in going missing.  During my last hospital stay, after a brain surgery, I struggled with hallucinations.  For a long time, I believed that I was under constant threat via kidnapping, which led to torture and likely death.  It was all incredibly real and clear that none of that stuff would be something to wish for.  None of that was real, and it was some of the scariest stuff I’ve ever experienced!  So no, I really don’t want to go missing against my will and I really don’t seem to be able to go missing on my own.  I remember one weekday morning about five or six years ago, I decided to drive to the ocean instead of going to work.  I left my phone at home, drove to a quiet, isolated beach, and sat in amongst some giant piles of driftwood with my head in my hands in an attempt to shut out the world.  It was cool and cloudy, and yet somehow, I still got a wicked sunburn, and when I returned to work the  next day, my manager asked me where I had disappeared to the day before, I told him that I needed a day away, and he was completely understanding and cool with it.  It really pissed me off! 

Maybe I want to go missing from my life as it is.  Perhaps it’s a desire to start over in some fashion – to rid myself of all of the responsibilities and obligations I feel each day.  Whenever I get asked what I would do, if I could do anything I want, I struggle to answer.  I’m not sure what I want, or I’m not sure I can allow myself to want things.  I know I want to escape from my health problems, and the constant obligation of checking up on the state of my poor health.  Instead, like so many of us, I wish for unattainable things, while trying to achieve some sort of record for denying myself any joy in life!  It’s clear that there is no reward for working those extra hours, or whatever.  No wonder I want to disappear! 

I vaguely remember an episode of Without A Trace where a woman went missing, and it turns out that she wanted to set up a fake kidnapping, so she could escape her life and start anew in some other country.  However, her fake kidnapper instead decided to really kidnap her, and it all went badly, until our TV heroes intervened just in time to save her from death.  That feels exactly right.

Maximo Park "Going Missing"