The Elephant in the Room: A Conclusive Holding Pattern

So, for whatever reason, I will meet this black-haired girl at some point in the future. Some will read that and think “Oh, that must be nice, thinking you know the future.” They think the experience of knowing the future is like sneaking a peek ahead in a book… assuming they’re not hopelessly deluded. But, if I am correct, it is an experience you simply cannot just outright imagine. If knowing the future is like looking further on into a book, then the pages are under your feet. To turn them is to invite perpetual motion. To turn them is to realize that time is self-committed. And nobody actually wants to think that through  

We think of the present self as “me”. This is not true. You are always you, time is  just a necessary sorting creature, who helps you come to grips with who you are in digestible chunks. Father Time is a kindly shepherd, helping you get as much of the full picture as you can stand. 

Few things are as painful as leaving the good Father. 

For, you see, gravity still exists in the spiritual realm. And you have jumped off the cliff. 

It is a long. Long. Long. Way down. 

You hurtle through utter chaos. This isn’t half as cute as it sounds. Time gives you space to sort everything safely. Now you don’t have that. That’s when you realize that chaos is an ocean, and what you thought was you is a thimble, and nobody is there to pull you out as you sink.

And boy, do you. 

It doesn’t take long to realize that I lied about falling. Saying gravity exists is simply modern cope. Silly modern, there is only relationship! And relationship has a funny habit of stripping your ego away, of forcing you to let go of all the petty things you thought you were. But if this is relationship… who am I relating to, in all this chaos?

Look down. 

Someone’s down there. It’s so infinitely large it’s hard to comprehend, but it’s there. In the bright darkness. Looking at you. 

And suddenly you understand why none of your thoughts are linear: one second you are two the next eighty-two. You look around and it all seems familiar, in the way a chair looks familiar if you’re looking at it in a funhouse mirror. 

Down below, you open your eyes. And you find yourself smiling at you, even as you are drawn towards you. 

And it is entirely too much. What we are is entirely different than what we can handle. Self is not an idea of yourself, but something so much greater that attempting to describe it is necessary deception.

And all that’s nice. But. 

You still have to get up in the morning. 

You still have a wife and children who need you to go to work and focus on all the incoming calls. You still have a PTSD-riddled body which makes thinking actively laborious. So you reach out, into the void… and the exact right thing just… comes. Right then and there. The thought doesn’t seem to come right now. But, I mean, who cares? It worked! Who cares why? Or how? The fact that wisdom that I didn’t know I had (because I don’t, not right now) just came out of my mouth is irrelevant, because I helped. Doesn’t stop me from wondering, however.

But the exact mechanics of what happened aren’t made clear until my wife walks into the room. There’s a moment where it all comes out jumbled at her. How could it not? Everything is excited to see her. Touch her. To feel her soul, pulsing in my hands. 

And suddenly, I am one again. Young and old. All is together. Loving her. It’s grown better with Father Time. Somehow I do understand her better. There is some form of progression in life, and it’s the most wonderful surprise I could imagine. 

So there is this moment, sometime in the future, where the black-haired girl and I will meet. I know this because I remember it as happening… however long… from “now”. A truly reverse memory. A memory that forces me to confront the self-deception I thought was identity. 

Why is this person in this reverse memory? It’s a lot to take in. I keep trying to understand why. And that’s natural. The mind has to wonder about such things, on some level. Mine doesn't shut up all that well, and it creates loops where I wonder why I am falling towards this moment in time. It's not exactly a comfortable experience, and wanting to know why she's involved is natural. And yes, I know that it only stops when the moment happens. So, it's extremely natural to want to know how to end such a deeply uncomfortable experience. 

It is also natural that I wonder about this person. Is she okay? Why has shown she up so prominently in my dreams? Why am I hurtling through chaos on account of this? Is there something I am missing?

But I have no power over this. I cannot contact her. It isn’t possible, and that’s that. Painful as it is to admit, I have no ability to change what is happening to me for the moment. Kindness, right here and in the next moment, is the only way I win. Kindness always wins. Always. It’s not perfect, but it will do as a way to hold the course. Even if this never ends, I know that it is better to die wondering what happened to her than try and obsess. That may sound extreme… but read the above again and try to grasp what I am saying here.

And besides, there is one more place I can find refuge: in the Now. And there is one way I have found that I can reliably get into the Now.

It starts the moment my wife wraps her arms around me. One infinity presses against another. 

And in that timeless time Maria does more than Father Time ever could. 

A Half-Hearted Attempt at a Conclusion

There are a few people who will wonder why I went out of my way to write four blog posts about a series of dreams that's really nobody's business but my own. There may be one person particularly who stumbles upon this, who will probably have a ton of questions, the bigggest one what the solitary fuck made me think I should put this up.

Let me clarify.

This blog exists because if I have to write it.

I don't have a plan. Every time I try to make a plan for this blog, I can't keep to it. I sit down, and whatever comes up, I write. That's how this works. And, for the last two years, every time I have sat down to write on this blog, the stories in these four posts have come up. Over. And over. And over. And for two years I have resisted the urge to write these four posts. It drained my ability to write here, and I need to write here. It's something that must be done, for whatever reason.

If these posts helped you, great. If they hurt you, I apologize. If they shocked you... well... how do I think I feel, writing them?

But the  blog most go on. So the posts are up. I invite questions, comments, concerns, etc, but understand that this is the most restrained and ethical way I could think to write about this extremely private and weird issue of mine.

I  do believe the black-haired girl is a real person, living in the world, right now. I hope if she finds these, she will see that I have attempted to the best of my ability to keep certain things private.  There are many things I could have said, that I did not. Will not. I have attempted to just keep to my side of the story. I know a good deal more than I let on, even here. This is the bare minimum I could write and continue the blog.

Anything more than that is just emotive posturing. So we cut it here. Onwards!

An Additional Note

My wife and I purchased this fine volume 

As I began to read it, a good many things clicked into place for me. The first few pages of this book clarified a hole in my philosophy of life, and thus everything I have ever touched. Including this blog post. Rather than smooth it out, I have elected to keep the messiness here, so that my evolution can be tracked for what it is. Expect some additional posts inspired by this book sooner or later. 

The thing that is relevant to this post and all four posts in the Elephant series, is this: a Christian is supposed to see the world not just in terms of symbols, but types: people who resemble a chief archetype (don’t think the repetition an accident). 

What I see in this eternal free-fall is merely the archetype of what falls. And, for whatever reason, I have been allowed a glimpse at what I already am… for I am being pulled to me. 

We all are like this. 

But if I did not see the process, in all its achingly beautiful glory, I wouldn’t have the strength to go on. I must know what I am in the orbit of. Explicitly. 

And that, my friends, is all that prophecy is: revealing to broken souls they still have a chance. And I am that, very much so do. 

The Warmth

Yes, this is written mere hours before this post publishes. Extrapolate what may happen past that, and let the reader be discerning. The biggest thing that tripped me up about the vision is that it is a total bodily experience. I experienced the event as my future self. The body that is mine in the future feels so different that it’s almost traumatic, just on its own. My body then is so much lighter! Warmer! I don’t recognize me! 

Yesterday, my wife was reading Mother Siluana to me about enfleshing the prayer in your currently felt feelings. You don’t avoid or fight what you feel. You let it become the feelings become the center of your prayer. Something in me whispered I had allowed this by accident before, and I knew of what she spoke. 

The prayer came, but this time for the black-haired girl. And a warmth came through me, out of me chest, culminating into my fingers. I was full of warmth. I was light. I was free. 

It was the same light and warmth I felt in my body as my baseline, when I meet the black-haired girl in the future. It’s not constant now like it is then. 

But there is a new beginning. Right now. The morning before I publish this. All the things in creation are for our good, even silly blog posts like mine!

Understand that, five minutes after this is published, things will be different. And you will not know. If you stick around and read the blog, welcome! If you don’t, hopefully some bit of this helped. I continue on, regardless, towards that fixed anchor I know for my own good. Onward!

The Elephant in the Room

 

My relationship with this blog has been complicated from the moment I started it. I didn't really know what exactly I wanted to do, or what to say. Peter, the only Patron I have, even now, has believed in me from the start. He has always encouraged me to write my thoughts and tell the world how I see things, even when we don't agree. As I work on this blog, though, there's one post that I feel I have to write, because it's been hanging over this whole enterprise since July, 2021.

The Black-Haired Girl

Before we get to the actual... well... dying... it's important we cover some preliminaries. Starting in 2004 or 2005 I began having dreams of a little black-haired girl. These dreams ranged from monster fighting dreams to peaceful afternoons at a park. Due to my baggage, which I have documented more than good enough for everyone on this blog, I didn't really take to these dreams terribly well. Some of these dreams involved actual waking visions, where she would be sitting at the head of my bed! I went to psychologists and exorcists, all of whom gave me a clean bill of health. They were confused, but they confirmed I was not delusional and not demonically oppressed or possessed. They had no idea what to make of me.

Understandably, I was not heartened by this.

July 2021

Unfortunately, C-PTSD came along and made these dreams all the more fraught. Oh great, turns out an adult did take advantage of me, and I'm having dreams of some kid! This sounds irrational, and it is, but just the idea of me having access to somebody of the opposite sex but younger, in any capacity, no matter how "unreal", tripped off something really profoundly scared in me.

And, just... well.. time took its toll. Early-mid July 2021 I hit a really dark place, the darkest I have ever been. There was a moment when I realized that I could either continue to suffer and wait and hope, or inflict my suffering on others. Make them as broken as me. I was tired. I was starting to consider the latter. I don't mean "huh, what if", but "yeah, that's something I could do".

And then this popped up.

Something in the quiet strength in this video... it broke that resolve in me. I just sat there, staring at the screen. I couldn't go forward with it. I just couldn't. And that was extremely painful. But I knew I had to go on.

July wasn't done with me, not even nearly. About a week later, I had a vision of the black-haired girl. While awake. It was intense. The vision was a promise of something to come. Suddenly I had this feeling of going down a slide towards a new grounding.  The exhilaration  was not what you would expect. I had a hard time handling it, at first. What everyone else would call "A sense of direction" I called a loss of control.

And then I got this tooth infection. Boy, you don't know pain till you got one of those. The pain was so exquisite they had to put me a particularly strong narcotic... and warned me that I would have a hard time processing emotions, on account of what the drug had to do to make me not feel the pain in my tooth. Boy did they undersell that one. 

A day after I started taking the meds an estranged friend of mine died. She and I had never really patched things up, and her dying broke open a dam of unresolved feelings that I didn't know I had... while on  a drug that made processing feelings extremely difficult. While processing a vision. While suffering from flashbacks. It was a lot, but I doing my best with it. 

And then, on the same day, in the same eight hours, another friend of mine and I had an argument. It was a bad one. He was at a low point, and had decided that he was done with trying. He'd been having a really rough time, too, and finally couldn't fight certain battles anymore. He knew it was a bad idea, and I called him out for it, telling him he couldn't give up, not yet. He exploded at me, saying he couldn't do it anymore. I pushed back. Hard. Told him he wasn't a coward, just tired. He had every right to be tired. It didn't matter what I said. My friend was done. He said as much. And he would appreciate it very much if I stopped pushing him. He knew what he was doing. 

I had done the right thing, or as close to it as I could. But it didn't stop me from waking up the next morning and feeling more tired than when I went to bed. I got up, walked into my bathroom. Lay down on the tile. And died.

No really. I was over my body. I saw it. I went cold.

Suddenly, I felt something push me back into my body: No. You have fought too hard to give out yet.

I had the vision. Again. And the warmth of it pulled me back into my body. I felt my body warm back up. I stood up. I felt... normal. Well, as normal as you can being on a narcotic that makes you not feel a bad tooth infection.

I went to work.

Came home.

Lived my life.

Most people think a resurrection should come with a choir of angels or a permanent glow. For me, it was just the ability to stand up and do a Tuesday. 

The Blog

I worked in a frenzy afterwards, but as I went, something kept working into my soul. I want to say it was Crescendo, but it was something else too: I had to do Crescendo. Had to. It was a fire at my back, threatening to consume me if I slowed down. Abandoned it. I couldn't even consider it. I just was... pushed. Hard. So I pushed hard. Anything that didn't include that overwhelming drive slowly fell out.

Well, by the time this blog post publishes, it'll be about four and a half years. So what now?

I have no idea.

I know that when I go back through some of the older posts on this blog I find something that I'm extremely proud of. Some of those old posts help me get back up when I'm having a bad day. Writing in this blog has become a part of what I do. Not really sure why, or even what I put here, but this is somehow a part of... me.

So, whatever that looks like. We'll see.