Dr. Jedidiah's Diary Episode #99: Soul Train Project

Dr. Jedidiah’s Diary

Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures. As a single father who lost his wife to drug overdose 10 years ago, he has not been his old perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met hundreds of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the world. Meeting new people and listening to their stories outside his office have given him different feelings from the ones through the formal encounter groups or being truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left him with some food for thoughts in life….. or a fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.

 

Episode # 99. Soul Train Project

When Jeremy gave me an estimated expense for the time-travel program, I was a bit taken aback at its steep price that I’d need to pay. I said to myself ‘Whoa….is it really worth all that money?’, but I found myself already signing a ton of pages in the packet presented right in front of my eyes by Jeremy, the director of this huge virtual program for people like me. He said there were a lot of people waiting for their turns to walk down memory lane through this unprecedented platform, which meant that I was supposed to make up my mind in any time soon before I might lose this once-in-a-lifetime chance. As I was turning in the completely signed packet of forms for the applicant passengers, I suddenly felt headaches and told Jeremy that my hesitance must make me look so asinine. He laughed and said “Dr. J, you’re not the only passenger that hesitates in the beginning of participation. Trust me. You won’t regret your decision to be on this program, and I know you’re not a malingerer. Quite a few passengers complain of headaches, sudden jolts of pain in their stomach, clueless paresthesia, and sleepless nights before they come for the ride. No worries. Just come only with excitement and peaceful thoughts about your journey to the past in your life.”

 

Yes, I was immensely nervous and could hardly believe that I’d be able to reconnect with my beloved wife Demi who left for Heaven long ago. For so many nights and days leading up to the D-day, I had thought over and over again about what I should say, visualizing in my head how I would react when this unbelievable thing took place. ‘What if I’d end up feeling all this like a total waste of time or some kind of a very pricey chicanery? What if I storm out of the place, furiously yelling at Jeremy “In your face!!!” ?’ But I knew it was too late to sklent from the truth that I should’ve faced one day when Demi was alive in my life.

 

Making the effort to breathe the right way with hundreds of deep inhales and exhales wasn’t good enough for quieting my racing heartbeats on the edge of my seat, wearing a weird-looking head-mounted device. Jeremy’s and his staff researchers’ voices in my headset gradually sounded surreal and finally got out of my earshot. It was the moment to take off for this long-awaited and never dreamt-of journey to see my Demi. I heard her voice now from a distance. All at once, I was struggling to stand up in my ski boots. As I was pulling myself together, I saw the most beautiful 28-year-old woman named Demi reaching out her hand to help me out, saying “You made a huge sitzmark right there, honey!” The sound of her big laugh, the touch of her hand, and the sweetness of her soft voice raised me up right away. Demi went on to say “Honey, you’re shivering. Are you okay, hon?” I could not tell if it was the chilly air of the ski resort or the inexpressible emotion that came rushing through my mind, but I knew I was trembling and lost for words. I held her in my arms for quite a long time without a word. Demi looked me in the eye and said “you’re still silly, being so painfully quiet. Well….but I like the way you look at me. ‘Cause I know I’m the only one for you.” Just as I would leave big sitzmarks in ski slopes, Demi left a huge dent in my heart when she passed.

 

Demi and I had hours of a long talk full of tears and laughs for the very first time in my life. Seeing her off at the dock where we used to walk around, I asked her to keep me in her memory in the place above. She said “yes, but only on one condition. Promise me that you won’t hurry your way here. I’ll always be right here when you are ready to see me again.”  

 

When Jeremy’s voice started to be heard again from a distance, I came back to my world again where there’s no shadow of Demi’s I could hold on to. Funny that I found myself hesitating again at the end of this virtual journey like I did in the beginning. I wished that I would fade away into somewhere in the memory lane with Demi once and for all.

Expressions

    1.  to be taken aback at something: to be surprised by/ shocked at…

    2.   to walk down memory lane:  to spend time thinking about and remembering the past or going to a place again in order to remind oneself of past experiences

    3.  asinine: stupid/ silly/absurd

    4.  malingerer: somebody who pretends to be ill

    5.  paresthesia: an abnormal sensation, typically tingling or pricking (“pins and needles”), caused chiefly by pressure on or damage to peripheral nerves

    6.   chicanery: guile, shenanigan, trickery, wile, dupery, fraud, fraudulence, hoax

    7.   to storm out of (a place): to leave a place quickly when you are angry or upset about something

    8.  in your face: slang that refers to ‘behaving or done in a direct, often rude way that is annoying and cannot be ignored’

    9.  to sklent from…: to deviate from …

    10.  out of one’s earshot: too far away to hear

    11. sitzmark: a dent/ sunken area left in the snow by a skier falling backward

 

*Picture Source: https://www.wowza.com/blog/immersive-video-extended-reality

& https://www.greenbiz.com/article/its-time-bridge-clean-energy-partisan-divide