My Heaven

When you and I think of heaven or paradise, there is an unbelievably miniscule chance that we picture the same place.

For instance, your heaven may be a sun-soaked beach on the ocean, or even simply a beautiful cottage with a garden where things always grow. There could be no rain because there’s no necessity for water to sustain life. Storms could be a thing of the past because destruction has no place there.

Your heaven could be painted with only bright colors, and everyone only plays upbeat music with lyrics that exude the idea of contentment with one’s existence.

Maybe in yours, as I’ve heard many people say, you’re all finally free of the oppression of genitals and sex drives, and you and everyone you know are running around like smoothed-out Ken and Barbie dolls without a care in the world.

Perhaps in yours there really are no husbands and wives.

But that’s not at all what I think of.

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My heaven is holding a cup of coffee while I’m looking over land of emerald grass contrasted against a layer of gray and white morning fog. The sun isn’t shining bright in the sky, but it’s there somewhere in the muted pallet of a cool, fall day.

I’m not rushing or looking at the time because there’s nothing left to do but enjoy this new existence.

The house behind me that I live in has two stories, but is a modest size at best. On the first floor, there’s a room where books line the wooden shelves built into the walls, old jazz and blues permeates the room from a record player near an expansive fireplace.

Upstairs are a few small bedrooms where I and my family sleep. You won’t hear the sound of a TV echoing in its walls, and smartphones don’t exist anymore in this realm. We only have landlines and payphones.

Because there are no longer any emergencies, and nothing is urgent.

There is no news media because there’s nothing new to report and nothing to endlessly analyze. There are no advertisements because we already have everything we want. There’s also no currency because we all only want the meaningful things that money can’t acquire for us.

No one worries about where their kids are when the streetlights come on or who they’re with, because there are no evil creatures here. They’re always safe.

And the words “politics” and “government” spark a sense of recognition that you’ve heard them before, but you don’t remember what they were anymore.

The city I live in is filled with the people I love, and the people they love. And we spend our days running around like teenagers exploring with the wonder of stepping out into the unknown for the first time.

Mental illness died with our former world, and existential dread can’t rise over the sandbags keeping it off the shores of this side of paradise.

In essence, yes, we’re all dead; we have to be in order to get there, after all.

But we also get to finally enjoy the things we were too afraid of in life, or that we didn’t do because we didn’t think we had enough time.

The clock never runs out in my paradise.

In my heaven, we finally get to be alive.