the problem with reality

I'm a Dr Who fan.  I get the craving to revisit my favorite doctor every once in a while, so off I go to once again view my favorite David Tennant episodes.  Of all the episodes, my favorites have got to be the ones in the library--Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead.  For those of you not in the know, this is where the doctor meets his wife for the first time and she sees her husband for the last time.  It is a strange idea--her timeline is backwards to his.  But believe it or not, this is not my point.  If you're interested, look it up.

The story takes place in a library.  It is a place where all the books ever created are stored.  Millions of millions of books are there--all made out of a single forest.  Problem is, there was a society within that forest called the Vashta Nerada.  This carnivorous society were collected with the wood that made the forests, and now they feed on any flesh that happens to come inside.

As the episodes unfold, more and more people die.  One who doesn't is the doctor's companion, Donna.  She is transported to another world, a world outside the library but actually right in its center.  In this world, she lives a life with a husband and two children.  She later finds out that this is an imaginary world, and that the difference between her and the rest of the inhabitants is that she can--and must--escape.  The others cannot, as they are all dead.

This is where I must part ways with the series.  Oh, my--if you think that the world you inhabit when you're dead is a world of your own creation, a world that exists only because you imagine it--you don't know my Lord.  There is a world awaiting us, yes, but it is a world that is so real, so true, so utterly un-fiction, that I can't even begin to think of a word to describe it.  I have seen glimpses--wonderful little peeks into a world where you can live the rest of your days in Love.  The minute we get there, we will understand that everything up to this point was actually fantasy,  This new world will be absolute reality--and it will be marvelous, in the truest sense of the world.  We will marvel, be amazed, be humbled, and be exalted:  all at the same time.

How can I know this?  Because Paul tells us that we now see as if through a mirror--darkly.  But then, oh Lord!  Then we will see You face to face!  Our eyes will be truly open for the first time.  I hope that day comes soon!

Thoughts on an alternate universe

People congratulate me on my ability to talk about my past.
They marvel at my dry eyes as I speak of life,
and suffering,
and tragedy,
and death.

What they don't realize is that I am not talking.
The person who speaks so sincerely
is from an alternate universe--
a universe where pain doesn't exist,
and where words are devoid of meaning and emotion.
Not for the listener,
but for me.

It isn't that I have no tears.
I have them,
they just don't come out during talks,
or during demonstrations of others' suffering.

When I speak, I might get a bit hoarse,
a bit breathy,
but I don't cry.
When I listen to others speak,
tears generally don't come,
and when they do,
it's only because
for a slight moment
you have breached my alternate universe
and touched the real me.

The real me feels.
The real me still,
even after 20 years,
sobs uncontrollably at the thought of my husband
growing cold in his hospital bed.

It hardly ever happens when I think of my husband, though.
It comes unexpectedly,
when Rose is separated from Dr. Who by an impenetrable wall
and she must live out her life in an alternate universe
where she is surrounded by beauty
and love
and people who love her--
in fact, she is surrounded by everything…
except the one person that she needs more than anything else in the world.

How did you eventually come to feel, Rose?
I mean, before the happy ending that was truly bittersweet.
Did you learn how to live again,
or were you stuck in a universe within your universe
where you existed as a shell,
perfect and beautiful on the outside
and dark and void on the inside?

I know that I might
one day
live to love again.
The question is
do I want to?

How could I ever open up my heart again,
knowing that it could all come crashing down
as it did before?

It has taken so long to feel healed--
I don't know that I could survive it,
should it happen again.

And so, I continue on in my half-life.
I live in the moment
and I try not to think of the people that I've lost.

But every once in a while,
I will turn on a show
one that ends in happiness or sadness,
it's all the same to me, really,
and I will feel a strange sort of satisfaction
in the tears trickling down my cheeks.

No, they're not tears about my situation--
that is too painful to inhabit--
but they are tears, nonetheless,
and it feels good
for a time
to feel normal.