I was half asleep as I started hearing Him. I had just woken from a dream which was about something that's been bothering me. Nothing odd. I just was somewhere I didn't want to be, in the presence of someone I can't speak with because she won't speak to me. Several years now.
In the dream I said, "well, it's been nice. My time is up now though." Then I fell to the floor, and stopped breathing. I remember voices and then darkness. I felt really peaceful. I was ready to die.
When I woke from this I heard that voice inside saying, "please, stop. Don't go. It's not time."
I answered, "I know, you love me. You don't want me to let go. And I'm sorry, I don't want to let you down. I just don't know how much longer I have. I'm failing fast and there's a part of me ready to move on now, even though You don't want me to. I'm sorry for that."
"It's okay... don't go. Please. I can't say I have anything special for you to do, but everyone has a part to play somehow in the world and you've been trying so hard. Don't let go. I can't stop you from going, but I can ask."
"I'm sorry. I'll keep trying."
"I know what's bothering you."
"And I know you can't make people feel something they don't choose to. Just... I don't know. Let her stop hating me some day before either of us lets go. If there's a way..."
So something inside is warning me. G-d, conscience, whatever you want to believe. Warning me to not let go. Which tells me that you can simply will yourself to die. That you can let go of this life and die without actually doing anything to kill yourself. No matter how depressed I've gotten, no matter how suicidal I was in younger years, I never heard this one before.
Something inside me doesn't want me to let go, and some part of me wants to. Why does the sunny warm day, the blooming flower, the smile of my wife bring me no comfort? What is the darkness now at the edge of my world threatening to come on like a storm? Financially, we're doing great, we're making progress on the house renovations, getting ourselves together after years of scraping by. We're a closer family than we've been ever before. I'm happy with my path to conversion. My wife has a new job. I don't want to die, that I know. I'm not remotely suicidal.
So why is there a part of me that wants to let go, even if it's to quiet darkness? Is it frustration at running in place and the gulf between where I am and where I am going and the speed of progress? What exactly is bothering me? So my mother isn't speaking to me. I wasn't the one who wronged her, she turned her back on me and cut me out of her life mere months before my grandfather's death. I didn't do that.
So she's a BAC. I don't think it is any of her business if I convert. I'm pushing forty and that's my business.
If she gave a damn, she'd call. In two plus years, she hasn't. For all the years before that I called her. If she wants to say something, she knows where I am and what my numbers are. Conscious and waking, I don't really care either way any more.
Maybe the dream was just a convenient framework to hang my doubts on. Maybe it meant nothing. The voice telling me not to let go and move on meant something. I think I need to be a little more skeptical of myself and just suspend judgment. Sit back, give it time, be patient. This I rationally know, but inside, a part of me is tired of waiting... for what I don't know.
