Olam Haba and Orange Juice

I had a scary dream.

I've spent the past two days not accepting that dream, as per Outdoorsman's instructions. We gave money to tzedaka. I said tehilim.

Still for someone not accepting a dream, I spend an awful lot of time thinking about it. And I realized how often I think about worst-case scenerios in general. Outdoorsman 15 minutes late? The most logical explanation involves two fire engines and a nuclear bomb. Coco-pop not up at her usual 6:00 AM? I run, heart pounding, to check her breathing. Dr. Google has diagnosed me with bubonic plague and scurvy. I have written a will, and of course, always wear clean underwear. Because, you know, if you are run over by a truck and the doctors see that your underwear wasn't clean, you could die of embarrassment.

My mind leads me places that I have no interest in visiting, much less settling in for a winter or two, and I must follow the train of thought, helpless, unable to press the bell and say, "Okay, Mind. This is my stop. Lemme off."

I am afraid of the dark. I am afraid of something unknown scaring me to death.

I read about some detective finally finding the true murderer, and I think, The person is dead. Gone forever. What's the difference?

And I wonder. What does this say about my emunah, my belief, in Hashem's plan? If I truly believed in Olam Haba, and I truly believed that everything happens for some ultimate reason, would I be so afraid? This much afraid? Reading about someone in the news and cry cry cry, thinking, she must have been so scared, how could a person survive, being so scared?

Outdoorsman says that, like everything else in our adult world, it's not so simple. He says that there are degrees of belief, levels of emunah. We need to work on them, sure. But it doesn't mean that I don't actually believe.

Which is nice, and a little more heartening than my black and white binoculars that I use to view myself and my faults.

Yesterday, Princess came across a picture of Outdoorsman's grandfather, who passed away when Outdoorsman was four years-old. "I never saw him,"Princess said, puzzled. Then her face cleared. "Oh. He must be in shamayim with Zaidy and Sabba and Hashem. Can I have some juice?"