Change identity. Professional. Town. Of life. Who has not fantasized about it? That show had us hooked. They found missing people. It was emotional to listen to those who wanted to recover the loved one who was never heard from again. The reunions after decades of absence were moving. It was fascinating to meet those who had been able to let go without looking back. Whether for tragic reasons or for the simple need to move forward without ballast or because they did not think they would be missed, no matter what they said, all the stories were powerful, rich and exemplary.
In February 2018, the Ministry of the Interior created the National Center for the Disappeared. Since then, it has published an annual report that is very interesting to read. As of December 31, 2020, there were 219,425 accumulated reports of missing persons. 16,528 were new. That year, the year of the state of alarm and hard confinement, was the lowest in disappearances in a decade, 37% less than the previous year. Of the new complaints, 60% were men and 40% women; 67% resolved within 14 days; only 1.1% resulted in death and a third of them were due to suicide; 89% were voluntary disappearances; 41% repeat offenders; less than 1%, forced or with indications of criminality; and 67% were adolescents between 13 and 17 years old, most of them minors in care who run away from their shelters.
But nevertheless, when I have most dreamed of disappearing, With running away, leaving everything behind and starting over somewhere else, without a past, or ties, it was not in adolescence, but as an adult. I’m not the only one. It has been revealed in some interviews by the director of that ’90s TV show, ‘Who Knows Where’, the great Paco Lobatón: a certain number of located people did not want to meet again with the relatives who were looking for them. They then joined the so-called R or reserved list, their decision to remain lost had to be respected. It was a time before the persecution of social networks, where you could wipe yourself off the face of the earth without leaving a trickle of data on the internet. Today it is infinitely more difficult to disappear without being located. And still it happens.
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In my fantasy, I was one of those. Like in a fictional story I read years ago, she would be a serious and compliant mother who leaves her children at school one morning and gets in the car, on impulse, decides not to return home, but join the highway and pull miles, with what she is wearing. Then I’d drive for hours until arriving at a small provincial city or perhaps a Castilian capital, let’s say Soria, or not, better Zamora. Although, already put, how about by the sea? Let’s say Huelva. I would look for a pension, a hostel, something very cheap so that the money (which I would have taken from an ATM before leaving my city) would spread as much as possible. I’d take a decent but impersonal room and find a job of any kind. A simple, modest job, in something that had as little to do with my previous life as possible. I know it’s the failing part of my fantasy because, unlike the novel that I read and that took place in the United States, where the protagonist immediately found a job, finding a job in Spain is not an easy task. And that on top of that you earn a decent wage that allows you to support yourself is even more complicated. But well, the beauty of this fantasy of mine is that I would then be a totally unencumbered person, no children, no mortgage, no Netflix account, no cell phone, nothing like that, and very austere. Actually, that would be the main engine of my escape: to shelve the burdens that so often overwhelm and constrain mothers. Well before arriving in Huelva, i would turn off my smartphone So that the experts from the National Center for the Disappeared wouldn’t track me down, I’d get one of those cheap and light gadgets that are worth nothing more than to call, and hey, tabula rasa. No children to care for, no husband to care for, no domestic life to manage. Or, as small electronics stores promise, unlocked and repaired.
And then… That is where my imagination falls short to imagine what I would do with my newly gained time. Feeling free from moral, economic, work or affective commitments, resting from the stress of everyday life is tempting, but how is it achieved? Perhaps the secret is to convince yourself that there is no other way to get off this runaway bus that drags us all, more than on the march.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com