Could you ghost yourself?

Have you ever thought about running away? Not just for a day to maybe escape the city and drive to the countryside for a clear-your-head session. Not like the kind of running away when you were a kid and it was only to get your anger out of your system all the while hoping your parents would notice, miss you and care. Not that kind of running way. I am talking here of leaving your adult life as you know it and just going somewhere else. Anywhere but where you are. Forever.  The geographical cure as they call it. Leave your job, identity and belongings behind and make tracks. The Hindu and Buddhist concept of vairagya.

I never allowed myself to entertain this thought when my kids were little and I was the heart of the home, their everything, and they mine. In fact when life was at its most difficult and busy that thought would creep in like a sly slut and scare me to death, because it was so tempting so enticing. And my response to it was immediate and complete shut down. But as I have grown older I entertain this thought quite a bit. I can allow the fantasy because there is no reason to feel guilty with these thoughts anymore, no tiny prying eyes welling up with tears as they notice mom is not really present, no husband looking out of the corner of his eye at me asking "what's up hon"?  It is just me myself and I now.  I can ghost myself to another part of the world and immerse a whole new future there.

In my fantasy I imagine I could become more into the life I am destined to live if I choose to go elsewhere, rather than stay where I was born. By that I mean I could find out in a deeper way who I am  what I think and what I feel about the world. I could gel my personality and find answers to those questions that elude me when I have loved ones near me that I live for, with and about.  Leave my own personal society as I know it and all the ways it has indentured me. I could let the ego that has to sustain itself in that society go too. No one would know me except me. I could introduce myself as Sussey no one would ever know I had that other name I so don't relate to. I think about that and I realize how much would go on in my head when there is no one but me to bounce things off of. Where would I go? Oh that is easy, Italy. In the Tuscan valley somewhere to a working farm as a cook or a cleaner or olive picker or grape harvester. I would befriend some old women or man on a farm. As I see and experience all things new, a new place to stay, new friends, new job, weather, scenery, food, language, culture....  oh my!!!! How would I cope?  Am I brave and resilient enough? What would I tell myself about it all? It would reveal so much about my true self. No one around who knows me- who I can slide into that old me for- rather only those I want to know and who don't know the old me. Other humans there in my new life for the knowing, all that is needed is for me to make the first move toward them. To be that extrovert I truly am, to be that creative soul not hidden under the educator.

Although this fantasy is very enjoyable and I find I am partaking in it more and more, I realize that to do this takes a lot of courage. A lot.  To leave my comfy home, family and friends I love, my income and pension- ummmmm.  To step out into the unknown, away from all this safe knownness. Is it worth it- hell yes. You only live once, life is not a dress rehearsal no matter all the bullshit I was taught as a child about the afterlife, this is it baby- go for it. BUT  are you brave enough? the answer I fear is not yet.

Of course this then begs that other question doesn't it? Why can't you do all this here and now? You know - bloom where you're planted, get into the now kilometer as my husband used to say. Practice vairagya here before the curtain lifts for the real show. Detaching from all you know, think, feel and have and finding your present, new, true, future self does not need a move to another side of the world. Finding your courage can happen on a side street where you live. Being your true creative self starts now- not in a beautiful Tuscan countryside but in your own piece of real estate. Meeting new people and discovering a new piece of your personality as a result happens wherever you are when you reach out with a hi or a handshake.

When you are brave enough here, you build that courage for there. This is your new fantasy Sussey. chew on that, let your mind take you to that poppy filled Tuscan countryside, lay in the grass, feel the sun, smell the earth. Build your courage. Then leap, let the curtain rise on the show of your life.