I'm Going Ghost For A Year

My Vocal account had been marked for deletion for five days. Why? Because I wanted to delete myself from the internet.

I logged in to see if the deed had been done or not, and I'm not too sure whether I was relieved or regretful, but I found that everything was still exactly as I left it. Okay. I still have time to change my mind, like I have multiple times in the past month already.

After skimming my ninety-eight notifications, a post from Vocal itself caught my eye. We can fully edit our stories now. We can change the titles, subtitles, and featured media. And, more importantly, we can delete our stories.

Something tweaked in my mind.

Did I really want to delete Vocal now, or did I just want a fresh start? Did I simply want to begin anew, or completely start again. All the subscribers, all the community, all the friendships... did I really want to start all that again? After a little deliberating, I decided that no, I didn't want to delete Vocal entirely. I just wanted to get rid of everything I had previously written to make way for new beginnings.

My body moved all on it's own. Delete, delete, delete. My fingers clicked that mousepad on autopilot, my vision softened and blurred as I got to work in a trancelike state. Some of my stories were hard to say goodbye to, some I scarcely remembered until I saw them again. Some I was proud of, some that put me on the map. Top stories, comedic posts that had hundreds of back and forth comments with the community. Some caused me to stall for a few seconds, but ultimately, they got the same brutal treatment.

Delete.

I had already handwritten all of my "For Her / Greater Than Death" poetry in a beautiful scrapbook I picked up off Amazon, and have written much more since, but even some of that was hard to remove from the internet. I was proud of much of this stuff. Some of my favourites. My Lagertha, Damsell in Distress, and True Love Will Prevail, to name a few. Atleast they still exist physically, but it is a shame nobody else can see them.

All of the other doomed stories (the ones I hadn't lovingly transcribed to paper) acted as a chronical of my couple years here on Vocal --a chronicle of my life outside of Vocal, too-- but in the end, I was ruthless. Everything: Journal entries, poetry, fiction, community challenge entries... Gone. I watched as my published stories went from 183 to absolute zero.

But why, and what now?

Well, after a lot of back and forth with myself, a lot of guessing and second-guessing, I've come to the conclusion that I have to disappear until the end of my license. And it's not just online either. I cannot watch the world go by and sit on the side-skirts. I can't keep checking up on Facebook, waiting for the inevitable and recurring pain that awaits me there. I can't keep bleeding my heart out to a world that doesn't really give a shit. I have absolute zero interest in the world outside these four walls that currently keep me-- not while my hands are tied, at least.

For the next full year, I'm deleting myself from existence. Gary Holdaway no longer exists. No past, no present, no future. The masters that run this world no longer control me. Social media, television, the constant need to share all aspects of life with people that don't matter. Corporate food entities, tech firms. I don't serve them anymore.

For 365 days I'm a ghost, growing in silence. Growing without screens, rejecting this society and all that comes with it. I'll be reading books, and writing by hand. Exercising, staying in, continuing in my sobriety. Takeout food and eating-out are a non-thing. I have no interest in friends, or socialising, or in anyway distracting myself from myself.

It's time to go through it all. To reset everything. My body, my mind, my life. I disconnect from money. Sure I will go out and earn it, and I will push forward as I do, but I'll not be spending any more than around £5 per day on food and the like. Everything else can just pay itself off. Get all that debt off my shoulders.

I'm drug-free, drink-free, social-free, and tech-free, for a year. And honestly it has to be this way. I can't face the world as I am now. I'm emotionally and mentally destroyed. I've tried to carry on, but I can't. I'm in a deep depression, suffering from massive loss, juggling confusing feelings over a death in the family, and there's fuck all I can do about any of it.

I need to change, drastically. I need to disappear and do the work. I need to transform. And I can't come back, not in a way I want to, before this license meets its end. So a year it is. A year without screens. Without socialising. Without anything outside of work, books, writing by hand, and self-development. I have to deal with everything that got me to this point in the first place, and ensure I'm never that person again.

I have time now to become the kind of person those that I love deserve from me. I have time to become financially, emotionally, mentally, and physically stable. To become confident... and just overall better.

And, most importantly, I have to do it in private. Without eyes on me, without my eyes on others. Without fear, and pain, and longing, and comparing. Without all the loss and heartache and wishing and wanting.

If I sacrifice myself now, if I disappear and delete myself from this world, by the end of 2025 I'll make the mother of all comebacks. I'll be a new man ready to take on everything that awaits me. Yes, I'm a ghost, but no, I'm not dead. I'm in purgatory. And I will rise again when it's my time.

That's a promise.

So goodbye for now... I hope you have a great year! I'll be back before you know it. This isn't the ending-- we've only just closed up the prologue.