Hello?
Tap, tap… Are you there?
I mean, are you really there? Because, let me tell you, there are days I am totally convinced that I’m talking to myself – that someone listening to me may think I’m schizophrenic and hearing voices or talking to my ‘imaginary friend’. It’s embarrassing.
Are you there?
But then I look out the back door. What do I see but see rich greens and bright, magical flowers growing, feel a breeze and – suddenly –I know you are. You really are. Then I think of the amazing people you’ve put in my path that I love, learn from and laugh with. Their presence in my life is no coincidence. Of that I’m sure. The best way to describe it is that they are gifts. To me. So, that leads to the question: who gives me those gifts?
Are you there? I mean, really?
Sometimes you are so damnably, frustratingly silent! I listen and I hear nothing, feel nothing. It’s talk-to-the-ceiling time! What’s that about? I’m ready to chuck the idea of you out the window as some mass delusion – a bunch of superstition. Reading about you doesn’t make it any better. In fact, it sometimes makes it feel worse.
Then I feel the Guilt (with a capital G)! I think of my friends who always know you are there and I feel guilty. Why can they, but not me? What’s wrong with me? I want to know you’re there all the time, but I can’t. Are you playing tricks with my head? I know you can have a sense of humour, but this is not funny!
Then, you speak up.
It may only be a whisper, a hint of something, but I hear you. So you are there after all! Better yet is when I feel you. I feel that warmth and contentedness of love – just washing over me, through me. Sometimes it feels like normal a human emotion, me loving someone or something. But more often than not, I know it’s you – I just know it! Like an out of body experience, I feel that you are separate from me but still in me, bubbling up from within! Then I know you’re there. Wow! Oh, that feels good. It feels right!
I wish you were there like that all the time. Because I hate it when I have to tap on the glass and ask, Are you there?