the old way was too lonely

     Every now and then, you actually hear a voice. It's coming from within your head, I guess, but you'd swear it was outside you. I feel like this happens maybe once every few years, for me -- the experience of feeling as though someone standing close by has just spoken. It's alarming. Usually it's just been "hello," or maybe a clear as day "paula."
     Then, nothing. It's like someone has said "Marco" right into your ear, and though you try your best to say "Polo! Polo! Polo!" they're gone. They just felt like spooking you and taking off.
     A couple of months ago, I heard that kind of voice. It woke me from what felt like a solid sleep. I don't even say "deep sleep" anymore. Anyone remember deep sleep? Evolution is still trying to work out that knot; either you wake up for a quiet "Mom?" or you get deep sleep. Let's make it so they wake up to the offspring who is having a bad dream or about to ralph, Evolution says (but not right into your ear). For years I've tried explaining to Evolution that the kids are not sleeping here anymore. They've moved out! I am ready for some deep sleep, I tell it. But Evolution does not give a whit. "You on you own, missy, " it says, with a bit of an urban, kick ass tone. Evolution can be cold, and I tell it so, often. It does not care. Not a bit, after you have somewhat successfully cared for your young.
     Actually, Evolution doesn't speak at all. Evolution is mute and stealth. Still, it manages to get its point across. Give it time; it's making some kind of point. A good time to think about this is while you are lying awake at night.
     But there is something with a voice. Now and then there is a voice. One March morning, the presence standing over me as I slept said, aloud and firmly: "The old way was too lonely."
     I was up. Like a flip book missing some pages, I was up. Hullo? What old way? What was I doing wrong? Too lonely for what? Come back!
     I've done nothing differently since then. I don't know what is being asked of me, given me, what is trying to guide me, or what the objectionable part of the "old way" even was. But I have felt distinctly unlonely of late.
     It's like without knowing it, without even knowing I needed something, I had said, "Mom?" into the night. And Something had said, "Right here. Always right here." Maybe Evolution is just a lackey; it has to answer to something bigger.