My heart longs for a future that’s more real to me than the dim past

I sometimes remember the future very clearly.

That notion violates everything we think we know about the world. We remember the past. We imagine the future. Everybody knows that.

But, still. Something in my heart remembers the future — and the truth of that future is often more clear to me — more real — than my memories of the past.

There are two parts of me and it’s hard to say which is the real me. One part of me has his feet firmly planted in the material reality around me. The other part sees and feels and experiences something beyond all that — but it’s vague and murky, as though I’m seeing it through a heavy fog.

The first part of me is grounded in “common sense” and in the material reality which we grow up learning about. But the second part of me — the part of me which consistently sees the woman and our home and my children — is grounded somewhere between spooky mysticism and the mysteries of quantum mechanics.

“Why do we remember the past, but not the future?” physicist Stephen Hawking once asked.

Quantum mechanics suggests that the future already exists. Common sense says that’s nonsense. My heart can’t argue about physics, but I long for a future I’ve already seen.

I see her eyes. It’s not like a photograph or a video. It’s more like a piece of impressionistic art.

There’s intelligence and drive and intensity in the eyes. They’re always light-colored. I call them blue, but I suppose they could be gray or green or something similar. There’s life in her eyes. There’s also pain. I don’t know why. And something else that’s hard to describe. Maybe longing. It could be longing to be truly loved, but I might be reading too much into that.

I can see her shoulders. Her arms. The texture of her skin. It’s not that it’s perfect. It’s simply that it’s her. Everything about her is like that. It’s not about her being perfect. It’s simply about her being her — being who she is.

I see a light and airy home. I can’t describe it in material terms, because it’s more of an impression. I feel colors and feelings — a certain musicality — in the home. It’s not as though I’m seeing the colors of the paint on the walls or furniture. It’s more like there’s color and emotions in the light and in the atmosphere of the home.

It’s a house, but I have trouble calling it anything but a home.

It feels more like the primordial Home — with a capital letter — the place where I belong and which is the source of life and love. I’ve never experienced Home in real life — not the sort I’m talking about here — but that’s what this is. For me, it’s a mythical place that I’ve seen only when I’ve briefly touched upon something that feels like the collective unconscious which psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote about.

I can close my eyes and put myself into this home. I can see the woman. I can see and smell and touch the children. I feel the love and I feel the powerful sense of beauty there.

But then I open my eyes — and I’m right back in this material world.

I call this “real life,” but I can’t say for sure which version of life is truly real. Those around me would call this real life — what I see when my physical eyes are open.

The woman isn’t here. I don’t know where she is. The children don’t exist yet. The house might or might not be there, but it certainly isn’t our home. Not yet.

I live alone — with one beautiful dog and three aging cats — in a house which had only one redeeming feature. It was a cheap foreclosure. It was a good place to park my worldly goods almost six years ago while I figured out what was going to happen next.

I still haven’t figured out what happens next, so I’m still here.

When I used to work in politics and I made a lot of money, I would have been ashamed to live here. It’s embarrassing to admit that I was so prideful. I’ve grown tremendously over the last decade. I’ve had to learn humility and patience. I’ve had to accept that I wasn’t as great as I had assumed I was.

But I see this loving Home for my future. I know this woman, but I don’t quite really know her. I know that future. I know it’s real, despite what material realists would tell me.

I don’t live really here. I’m parked here. It’s as though the world has stopped for me. Time has stopped. I’m waiting. I don’t know exactly what I’m waiting for. As I said recently, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

The only thing I know for certain is that it already exists.

She exists. That place exists. Home. Children. Love. Light and creation.

I haven’t seen them yet, but I remember that future very clearly. I know it’s waiting for me. Somewhere.