A moment in nothingness

I thought I had experienced the entire range of feelings in life, but it was not so.

Several nights ago I was watching a special on the concepts of space and time. In one segment of the documentary, a demonstration was performed with a water balloon hanging from a pole. Someone from a distance shot the balloon with a pellet gun, bursting the balloon. At this point the film was shown one frame at a time. One could actually see the balloon dropping to the floor while the water was intact, still in the shape of the balloon. The water was in place without being held by anything for a couple of frames. In real time it was a matter of a micro-second that the water was suspended in the balloon shape even though the balloon skin had dropped from around the water. The photography was splendid.

The scene was fortuitous. A couple of days later, I was in normal conversation with a good friend. The words spoken were normal and definitely logical for the flow of the conversation. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an epiphany struck in lightning quick fashion. I have had epiphanies before. Sometimes they have come while trying to solve problems; at other times, they have appeared after a period of time mulling an idea. But this day, the epiphany happened without warning and struck so quickly that it was as if the balloon skin had dropped and for a moment in suspended time I glimpsed the raw vision of the logic of the conversation . I didn't at all want to hear the logic because I fiercely, maniacally desired a different conclusion, yet it hung suspended for my eyes to see. I doubt that I was breathing for that suspended moment. It became momentarily dark, my feelings numbed, my soul had been pierced. I'm sure it was a split second, but it seemed like several minutes. Time had stopped. Darkness had set in. My limbs were paralyzed. My psyche had been cut clean to the core, excised of any but one thought. The normal stream of thought had been disrupted, suspended in a vacuum. After my sensations returned, I had the very bleakest, direst of feelings, so much so that I took a couple of minutes after my good friend left to check to see if I was in reality.




My thinking process tried to sort that moment in nothingness on the drive home, but to no avail. My mind refused to rationally analyze what had been presented to me in a flash of a moment. I sat in silence, once home, for a long time. I finally turned on the TV, but turned it off after eating because it was much too cheery. The night was fitful. I could not rest. Finally, I just got up at 2:30 AM and tried to think through why my mood had been so altered. I knew that I was headed for a morning that was all out of kelter. My mood turned to something really foul. By morning, I perfectly understood the reason why I had had the moment in time the day before when the world turned dark,breathless, and vacuous. I had earnestly, intensely wanted an outcome counter to the agonizing epiphany shown to me. I had no plan on how to work myself out of the realization from the day before. Every fiber of my being rejected the outcome of the epiphany.

By noon the next day and after some human interaction to take me away from my darkened thoughts, I was back on track to living life normally. But, that small moment in which I came face to face with an idea that I had hoped against hope would not happen has taught me that I haven't experienced the full range of emotions and that I am not fully in control of my life like I had thought. Not even close. Life has hit me with lightning strikes before, but not like this one. I had to once again put one foot in front of another and slowly emerge from night and silence into a world that had changed for me once again.

**************************************
I don't know what is happening. Life has radically changed. Ideas from my youth on the way the world was supposed to be forever and ever, immovable forever and ever amen, have been taken from me and flung 100 galaxies away. It seems like echoes from another lifetime to hear words like "my yoke is easy and my burden is light." I cannot take another sharpshooter epiphany, but I don't control that.