“I don’t know about ‘flawed,’ but I understand what you’re thinking,” he said.
I had managed to impress plenty of therapists with my basic knowledge of myself. Say a couple of profound things, and you’re off the hook. Those therapists couldn’t read my mind, and I could get away with it. No doing that here.
“Come on, man,” I said. “Out with it.”
“Fine.” He took a deep breath, which caused Blondie to cock her head in anticipation. “You wanna go back?”
Frozen. I was frozen. Like when I was frozen on the field after our game. I tried to talk but couldn’t make a sound. I was trapped inside my body. Finally, I said carefully, “But Fate said I couldn’t go back.”
“I know. And I certainly appreciate that. Think about that for a minute. Which one of us do you think would have that kind of ability?” He had a whimsical look as he mimed a scale with his hands and said, “God. Fate. God. Fate.”
I smiled. “Are you throwing Fate under the bus right now?”
“Not at all. There are just certain things that the boss has to do. Fate did exactly what he was supposed to do when you asked about going back. It’s his job to let you or anyone else know that they can’t go back. You don’t think you’re the first person to ask, do you? You’re not that special.”
I think that was a joke. I hoped that was punctuation for the sake of levity.
“I didn’t mean to imply that—”
He cut me off. “Relax. I was kidding.”
“So. Um. What do you mean, do I want to go back? You mean go back, go back? Go back to where? To when? What will I remember? Back to Jess? Back to Timmy? I don’t understand!” I was completely losing my shit. “Do I just wake up in front of The Gym? Before or after the car hit me?” Does the car even hit me? Maybe I didn’t break my only rule after all.
God held up his hand.
I stopped talking immediately.
“Breathe.” He held his arm up like a yoga instructor. “Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth.”
We did this together a few more times. My heart rate returned to normal.
“The thing is,” he continued, “I kind of need you to do something for me.”
“Sounds a little Godfather-esque. You need me to take someone out?”
The joke fell flat.
“I need you to write about it.”
“Write about what? This? Dinner? My life? You? What?”
He continued. “This whole place is kind of a big secret. It is exactly why most near-death stories are kind of vague and similar. We make sure they go back with white lights and magic. I’m not discounting those stories in any way. They’re very real. They happened. Some people just aren’t ready for this place, and we send them back. We’ve never sent anyone back, however, who was ready to be here.”
There was no way to count the number of times I thought about checking out. I didn’t necessarily pray for it to happen. Okay, yes, I did. I thought it would make things easier. In my mind’s eye, there was no fitting in or belonging in heaven. There was just being. Acceptance was the law of the land. Surrender was inevitable because there weren’t really any other options. So when I had blurted out to Fate, “Iwannagoback,” it was in the moment. Now that the reality had sunk in and I was certain it wasn’t going to happen—I wasn’t so sure.
“You can take some time to think about it,” God assured me.
“How much time? Like an hour? A week? A decade? Forever?”
“Time doesn’t really work that way here.”
I thought he was going to say “down here.” For a split second, I wondered if earth was hell. From here—everything was pretty much “down.” Based on my experiences so far, maybe anything not here was hell. Maybe “hell” was just a catch-all brand like TiVo. Maybe it wasn’t a place at all, but instead, just a state of mind. We often say, “I’m in hell,” to describe horrible situations. Maybe “hell” is just being caught in a state of perpetual horribleness. No need for fire and brimstone. Satan is not necessary. Or . . . here comes another maybe . . . maybe Satan is kind of like God and is whatever we decide it is. If that were true, I certainly wouldn’t have any problem imagining what Satan would look like. Sort of like when I was on the couch opening and closing my eyes to see God as Blondie, Nana, or Ira. Satan would look like an old boss, that one ex-girlfriend, and maybe the friend who ghosted me when I needed him most.
Funny thing is, it might be easier for me to imagine Satan than God. I think I lived more comfortably in darkness. I was certainly more creative. The best stuff I wrote came from my imaginary Satan more than it did from my imaginary God. At least, I always thought it was my best stuff. Maybe I was just kidding myself. Maybe it was just another old narrative that kept me locked up. Stay dark. You create better here. Seems ridiculous. Art should heal, not imprison. All those people I blamed that I imagined as Satan: my mom, my sister, my dad, colleagues, clients, you name it. Pathetic. But now I knew that the only person who really put me through any kind of real hell, the only person who deserved to sit in Satan’s seat . . . was me.
“Wow, you really torture yourself, don’t you?” God took me out of yet another mind spin.
“Everyone deserves to be good at something.”
“Listen, Erik, it didn’t have to be so hard. It never did,” God said, and as I started to interrupt, he held up his hand again. “You did most of that to yourself. You knew exactly who you were at a young age. You knew exactly what you wanted to do.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Exactly. ‘Yeah, but.’ ‘Yeah, but.’ ‘Yeah, but.’ I’m sorry to be so blunt, but your life got lost in all those ‘yeah, buts.’ These broken dreams you’ve come to grips with were killed by ‘yeah, buts.’ You did the work. You had moments when you were able to get out of your own way, but for the most part—you remained your own biggest roadblock. You decided that you needed permission from everyone for everything. Nobody forced that on you. It’s cliché to say you were your own worst enemy, but you were. Seems maybe you still are. Forgive yourself. So you can finally trust yourself.”
Forgive myself. There it was again. Just like Mort said.
I had enough therapy to know why I behaved in certain ways or made certain decisions. I was armed with reasons. Reasons can go one of two ways. Reasons properly cared for, encouraged, and manicured become beautiful gardens of personal growth. Unattended, mismanaged, and not properly watered, however, reasons become excuses. They become blame. Demons feast on blame. They die from growth. Growth is demon-poison. My reasons became overgrown forests of excuses. My demons thrived. I think I decided the only way to finally kill the forest was to kill myself. It got that bad.
Suddenly, God said, “I didn’t intend to lie, but I think I may have.”
“Wait. I can’t go back?”
“Oh, you can still go back, but you don’t have as much time as you need. Giving you more time just makes it worse. This proposal wasn’t meant to cause you more angst. It was meant as a gift.”
“Ask me again.”
“Erik, would you like to go back?” And before I could answer, he continued. “You may or may not remember any of this. You hoped that the boy would just ‘have a feeling.’ Well, that may very well be what you experience. Or, and this is important, you may go back with nothing changed. So would you like to go back?”
