“See what I mean?” she said.
Closed and opened my eyes.
Prince.
Again. My sweet, ninety-six-year-old nana.
Again. Jond.
Again. My high school English teacher who died on the golf course.
Again.
Again.
Again. Even my mom briefly.
It was like Ghostbusters. I was afraid the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man might soon be sitting on the couch. Finally, I closed my eyes tightly. And when I opened them, the wizard was back.
“I’m whatever people need me to be,” he explained. “For some, I’m just wind. In fact, I think you wrote that once.”
He was right. I had written a poem once. I never finished it. I started it when I was in an incredibly dark space, but when I came through it, I couldn’t figure out how it was supposed to end:
I prayed to the only
God I know
the one with the voice
that sounds just like
shimmering leaves
when the wind
gently blows
It rambled on after that, but I never figured out what happened when I opened my eyes and stopped praying. It sat on my phone, unfinished, for months. Maybe years. I can’t remember. He was right. I could wrap my mind around God as nature. God as the breadth of my experiences. The advice I had received. I heard God’s voice in the wind. But my image of God was the stuff of fiction.
As I looked at God now, I just sat with a sense of acceptance.
“Before I ask you the question I have for you, do you have any questions for me?”
Do I have any questions for God? Is he kidding? Where would I start? What should I ask first? I spent my entire life asking questions. I spent my entire life torturing myself with questions. I had spent my time in . . . wherever this was . . . trying to stop asking all the questions. I wasn’t in the mood to fight myself with all the questions. Still, I was sitting with God, wasn’t I? I felt like I had a responsibility to anyone who had ever prayed for such a moment. I hoped I was up to the task.
“Anything?”
“Yep. Have at it!”
God was sitting across from me and had given me permission to ask anything. I could ask him about the meaning of life. I could ask if he felt pain—physical or otherwise. Did he have a higher power? I could ask about why humans were so horrible to one another or if it bothered him that humans killed each other in his name. That must cause him pain. I could ask him about the Bible. Come on, my dude, fact or fiction? I could ask . . . anything.
Ooooh, I could ask if he did have favorite teams and fuck with the outcome. I nearly did. I could ask any of those questions that haunted me. Those questions that kept me up. Those questions that my demons taunted me with. Fucking anything. And I was blank. Well, not blank as much as I didn’t know where to start. As I racked my brain to figure out what I should ask, I stopped and thought about what he had just said. Wait. There is a question for me? I looked up, and I swear he smirked.
“Can I defer my question until you ask me yours?”
“Sure,” he said, “mine is easy.” And without missing a beat, “Why did you do it?”
Oh, fuck.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Following a bad divorce and three years of digging herself out of debt, a woman’s friends take her to a casino to celebrate her new life. She wins $400,000 on the first pull of a $1.00 slot machine.
I forgot that I had killed myself.
Myriad thoughts tumbled through my head. Wouldn’t God know exactly why I did it? Why the need to ask? Is this why I was invited to dinner? I wondered for a moment if everyone at dinner was asked the same question, but I quickly realized that wasn’t the case. All these thoughts came one after another after another without God and me ever breaking eye contact. Of course, he knew exactly what I was thinking. No point trying to deflect at this point.
I took a deep breath and started to ramble.
“Truthfully, I think the sequence of events started at birth.” I wanted to make a joke, but I wasn’t kidding.
God knew I wasn’t kidding, but he raised his eyebrows in a way that suggested he best get settled in. He repositioned himself on his couch, nestled in across from me, kitty-corner. Lying on the couch with my hands folded on my chest, I gazed into the rich, colorful canvas of the sky with a completely clear and focused mind. I didn’t have to think. I had practiced this story over and over for therapists, friends, and others. Most of the time, in this exact same position. Like an athlete who had perfected his craft, I was reciting a story from muscle memory. This was my ten thousand hours. I’d told this story ten thousand times to a hundred different therapists. Fooled them all.
“I’ve talked so much about fitting in versus belonging,” I asserted. “From a very, very young age, I felt like something set me apart. I knew that I didn’t fit in. The fact is, I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere. Like I was a total outcast. That’s how I felt my entire life. On my own. Alone. As long as I can remember, I was lost in my own mind. I had thoughts of what I should be. I had thoughts of what I could achieve. I had thoughts of . . . ” My voice trailed off. I hadn’t even realized that I had started crying, and a lone tear interrupted my stream of consciousness when I tasted the salt. It surprised me.
“I’m babbling.” I tried to downplay my grief. This usually worked. But not here. This therapist wasn’t having that.
“Keep going.”
