The Thinker
A couple weeks ago, I woke up randomly around 5:30 AM and had to use the restroom. I got up, went to the bathroom, and crawled back in bed ready to get a couple more hours of sleep before my day needed to start. As I lay there half asleep with my eyes shut, something odd happened. I could not tell if I was dreaming or thinking. I did not feel asleep, but I equally did not feel like I was making up any of the things in my head as they happened.
It felt like an imaginary place I would invent. It had the sorts of things I would have definitely made up... but it felt like the place had been made up without me knowing, and I was only now being introduced to it all.
I was somewhere. The place had a warehouse or an abandoned-Costco feel to it. The lights above the area where I was were the only ones on, and as I looked around I could not see an end anywhere to the building I was in. I knew the place was large, but in every direction, it eventually got too dark to see if the concrete floors and white walls would ever cease. There were glass marbles of all sizes everywhere I could see. They filled the floors and far off corners of the never-ending building.
There was a girl there.
She looked like me, but her hair was cut short. She had a bubbly personality, odd sense of humor, and she walked around like she owned the place. She knew every nook and cranny and had a very matter-of-fact tone of voice. The lit area that we were in was where she lived and spent all of her time. She wandered this building since the day she was born. It was all she knew, but she knew it well. I was confused about where I was and what was going on, and this girl began to explain it to me.
"This is Beccca,” she explained. She told me that each marble on the floor represented a different thing I think about. Whenever I was “thinking” about something was when this girl would roll and play with the marble. As she rolled them, they would get bigger because more things would be added to my memories and thoughts associated with that concept. The marbles were transparent, yet also colorful because each one was full of a jumble of items and pictures and everything I thought about it. There were layers upon layers of things making up the inside of these glass marbles. Where this girl lived, she kept all her favorite thoughts. The biggest marble in this area was probably ten feet tall.
This marble was the marble of my relationship with God. It contained everything to do with what God was teaching me, what He already has, and what I know about Him -- it was my whole relationship with God in one giant glass marble. Right next to it sat a slightly smaller (still huge) marble. This marble was my relationship and memories with Jaren, my adventure partner. It had all of our inside jokes and the things that he has taught me over the past couple years. Off to the side was a marble that came up to my shoulders. This marble was everything I wanted and thought about my future. All my hopes and dreams.
The girl showed me around and explained everything to me. She mainly sat on the ground, leaned up against one of the huge marbles, and played with a little one that was slightly smaller than a basketball and was something silly and quirky that I think about -- like how Saturn is fake or how Idaho is an imposter.
Some time later -- I am not sure if it was that night or the next morning or some nap in between -- I went back. I was exploring the vastness and looking at the marbles. Suddenly I found a larger marble that came up to my knee. Unlike the other marbles around this place, this one was completely black. You could not see a drop of light through it if you tried. I went to ask the girl about this marble but she hardly let me speak -- let alone get close to it. It was against the rules to touch that marble. She seemed so scared of it and she did not want me to ask what it was. This marble was the marble of my bad memories and the thoughts that I avoid thinking. This marble was the things that ruin my day or make me sick when I think about them.
I came back to this place called “Beccca” again later. I walked in to see the girl (I call her The Thinker) not where I expected her. Usually, she sat joyfully up against one of her big favorite thoughts and played around with things that make her laugh. Today, when I walked in, she was cringing and wiping her hand on her shirt and pant leg as if it stung. She had a huge black stain on her clothes from whatever was on her hand, and her whole palm had turned black. I saw the black marble off in the corner of the room, but this time there was a perfect handprint on the front of it -- the only part of the marble that was clear instead of black. “This is why we don’t touch it!” she began “it always hurts and then I am stained for the rest of the day.” Her voice was full of disdain and frustration. As I watched her be annoyed and try to clean up, I kept looking back over at that forbidden marble and the one handprint that wasn’t black. I looked at it, back at her, and back at it.
I knew she hated that marble, but it seemed to me that the only way she would be able to fix it was by touching it. Once she fully processed it and thought through it all -- even if it was painful -- eventually that marble would be like all the rest. It could be clear and colorful and she would not have to be afraid.
***
It felt like an imaginary place I would invent. It had the sorts of things I would have definitely made up... but it felt like the place had been made up without me knowing, and I was only now being introduced to it all.
I was somewhere. The place had a warehouse or an abandoned-Costco feel to it. The lights above the area where I was were the only ones on, and as I looked around I could not see an end anywhere to the building I was in. I knew the place was large, but in every direction, it eventually got too dark to see if the concrete floors and white walls would ever cease. There were glass marbles of all sizes everywhere I could see. They filled the floors and far off corners of the never-ending building.
There was a girl there.
She looked like me, but her hair was cut short. She had a bubbly personality, odd sense of humor, and she walked around like she owned the place. She knew every nook and cranny and had a very matter-of-fact tone of voice. The lit area that we were in was where she lived and spent all of her time. She wandered this building since the day she was born. It was all she knew, but she knew it well. I was confused about where I was and what was going on, and this girl began to explain it to me.
"This is Beccca,” she explained. She told me that each marble on the floor represented a different thing I think about. Whenever I was “thinking” about something was when this girl would roll and play with the marble. As she rolled them, they would get bigger because more things would be added to my memories and thoughts associated with that concept. The marbles were transparent, yet also colorful because each one was full of a jumble of items and pictures and everything I thought about it. There were layers upon layers of things making up the inside of these glass marbles. Where this girl lived, she kept all her favorite thoughts. The biggest marble in this area was probably ten feet tall.
This marble was the marble of my relationship with God. It contained everything to do with what God was teaching me, what He already has, and what I know about Him -- it was my whole relationship with God in one giant glass marble. Right next to it sat a slightly smaller (still huge) marble. This marble was my relationship and memories with Jaren, my adventure partner. It had all of our inside jokes and the things that he has taught me over the past couple years. Off to the side was a marble that came up to my shoulders. This marble was everything I wanted and thought about my future. All my hopes and dreams.
The girl showed me around and explained everything to me. She mainly sat on the ground, leaned up against one of the huge marbles, and played with a little one that was slightly smaller than a basketball and was something silly and quirky that I think about -- like how Saturn is fake or how Idaho is an imposter.
Some time later -- I am not sure if it was that night or the next morning or some nap in between -- I went back. I was exploring the vastness and looking at the marbles. Suddenly I found a larger marble that came up to my knee. Unlike the other marbles around this place, this one was completely black. You could not see a drop of light through it if you tried. I went to ask the girl about this marble but she hardly let me speak -- let alone get close to it. It was against the rules to touch that marble. She seemed so scared of it and she did not want me to ask what it was. This marble was the marble of my bad memories and the thoughts that I avoid thinking. This marble was the things that ruin my day or make me sick when I think about them.
I came back to this place called “Beccca” again later. I walked in to see the girl (I call her The Thinker) not where I expected her. Usually, she sat joyfully up against one of her big favorite thoughts and played around with things that make her laugh. Today, when I walked in, she was cringing and wiping her hand on her shirt and pant leg as if it stung. She had a huge black stain on her clothes from whatever was on her hand, and her whole palm had turned black. I saw the black marble off in the corner of the room, but this time there was a perfect handprint on the front of it -- the only part of the marble that was clear instead of black. “This is why we don’t touch it!” she began “it always hurts and then I am stained for the rest of the day.” Her voice was full of disdain and frustration. As I watched her be annoyed and try to clean up, I kept looking back over at that forbidden marble and the one handprint that wasn’t black. I looked at it, back at her, and back at it.
I knew she hated that marble, but it seemed to me that the only way she would be able to fix it was by touching it. Once she fully processed it and thought through it all -- even if it was painful -- eventually that marble would be like all the rest. It could be clear and colorful and she would not have to be afraid.
***
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