Just decades ago, the greatest luxury a teenager could buy was the chance to vanish. A bus ticket, a little money, and suddenly you could be someone new. Like Holden Caulfield dreaming of escape, I long for my own act of disappearance, slipping away without a trace. Yet today, when every movement is tracked and every decision scrutinized, disappearing feels impossible.
The truth is, I don’t actually want to disappear. What I want is self-determination. Disappearance once meant freedom, the independence to decide where to go and who to become. Now every move is mapped and enforced, often by the people who love us most. Technology leaves no room to slip away, even for a moment.
At night, when the house finally quiets, I feel the absence most. Silence asks nothing of me. For a little while, I can imagine a life that is mine alone. I watch my friends’ taillights evanesce into the vastness of the world, like dreams slipping out of reach.
Maybe this longing for autonomy comes from the tension between inevitability and free will. The path ahead already feels drawn: work hard, get into college, follow the steps toward being a “successful” adult. My parents want the best, but their hope often feels like control, slowly suffocating me. The harder I try to meet expectations, the more I feel my life unfolding as if written by someone else.
“To disappear, for me, is not rebellion.”
Brandyn Luong ’27
To disappear, for me, is not rebellion. It is breathing space, the room to stumble and choose, and discover who I am before someone else decides. The kind of disappearance I dream of is not permanent. It is a pause, a step away from routine and surveillance long enough to prove I can stand on my own.
Maybe I don’t want to vanish after all. Maybe what I want is the freedom to choose, to trade certainty for the joy of writing my own story.
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