Already Within

HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK.

My alarm is obnoxious, I need to change it already.

I hate the discomfort of my twisted pajamas coiled around my body the moment I open my eyes. I hate the crumbs in my bed from Winston’s bone that he gnaws on before bedtime. I hate the sunlight that pierces through the magnificent skyrise view I once dreamed of directly to my burning, dried out eyeballs.

5 more minutes of bed would be ideal, but I hear the dinging of my email and immediately, I am obligated to the digital world without my toes having even touched the ground. I suppose I’ll brew a pot of coffee so that I have a little more running through me than this wave of anxious morning thoughts.

Good morning New York City, you are a pain in my ass.

“Why is it, Alicia, that you have ran so far just to come against a brick wall?” My lifeless face stares back at me in the mirror, still not answering the same question I ask it every morning. What the hell am I doing with my life?

Aside from the transition time between rolling out of bed and checking my desktop emails, my day seems to move slowly. Nothing beats the that feeling of disabling my microphone and video on an early morning Zoom meeting. This veil of invisibility behind a screen of miserable professionals is just what I needed to drink my coffee in peace. Every morning comes so quickly, and, to a degree, unexpectedly.

Thump, thump. RUFF, RUFF.

Ah, the sound of the packages hitting my doorstep, I do love that. I’ve been expecting my peach foot callus peel and yellow rain booties for Winston to absolutely saturate this tasteless Thursday morning with what I like to call, The Jeff Bezos Remedy. You’ve done it, Amazon Prime, you have curated the supply for this country’s dopamine.

I realize quickly that the package has my mother’s name on the sender’s address. If I had to guess by the feel of it, it would be a box of chocolates for the holiday, as she is my only Valentine this year…

No way.

Tearing it open, I suddenly recognize this flimsy old black book. I haven’t seen this thing in years! A note from Mom pasted on the back reads:

Alicia,

I found this sweet book as I was cleaning out your old closet at home and just knew that you would love to read it. You always were the dreamer.

Miss and love you.

Kisses, Mom

I suppose I could use this distraction. Opening the cover, the very first page is filled with neon pink gel pen ink looped in cursive and smeared with hot Cheeto dust. How did I forget this existed?

Dear me,

DO NOT READ THIS UNTIL YOU’VE GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL!

Hello future Alicia, I made something for you.

I am just so excited to grow up already and do whatever I want, so I’ve created a little project for you.

I’m really upset that Mom said I can’t go to Florida with Catie’s family since I don’t have the money to. They always say how broke we are but spend their money and time on stuff they don’t even like that much. No wonder they aren’t happy.

Anyway, here is a book for you to use when you move out of the house. Every single page is titled with something I dream of doing. Fill the page up with your experience doing each thing and PROMISE ME that you will do them.

LOVE, 7th Grade Alicia

Flipping through the book I see each page is titled at the top with a promise to myself.

Page one: Go to Florida. Two: Get a Dog. Three: Move to New York.

The nostalgia of my preteen daydreams swells tears to my eyes. Interesting how imagining these dreams coming true seemed so much more magical in the moment. I used to believe that feeling would just stay there forever once I achieved these things and now look at me and my mundaneness.

Imagining my younger self, I begin to write back to her on these first few pages, describing in detail the moment I found Winston at the dog pound and how I just instantly knew he was mine. I also wrote back to tell her that New York is more stinky than I expected but I did make it here to the city that never sleeps.

Flipping a little further, I see that every single page of this book is titled. Page twelve: Go on a West to East Coast Road Trip. Page thirteen: Live With Your Best Friend. Page fourteen: Fall in Love.

Okay, so maybe I haven’t done as nearly as many things that I thought I would have by 25. Whatever, I’m doing my best, and I need to get back to my brain-frying excel documents.

∴ ∴ ∴

Toss and turn and toss.

Silly of me to think that my anxious bedtime thoughts would seize to visit me tonight. Something just doesn’t sit right with me while envisioning all those empty pages in that little black book. I feel a little haunted by the thought of my days just passing by with just about no real dreams to fulfill these days. Maybe my wishes were a little juvenile but going on a road trip across the country does sound like a dream come tr…

∴ ∴ ∴

Woah. Where the hell am I? I can’t see shit.

“Hi Alicia. It is so great to reconnect. We’ve been watching you, why haven’t you removed your blindfold?”

Where is that voice coming from? This doesn’t feel safe. “Hello, can you take this off of me, please? I can’t see. Where am I?”

“Alicia,” says the nurturing voice, “you can take it off yourself. Your hands aren’t tied”.

As I remove the blindfold from my face, I still can hardly see as my eyes adjust to this illuminating white room.

Right as I look over, I see a woman whispering into what looks like a walkie-talkie. “Attention local team members, operation has surpassed the Tier 4 assignment. Subject 8 is awake.” Just like that, a group of men carrying little clipboards scurry into my room, leaning into one another, and whispering. What is going on here? Am I coming out of a coma?

“The list has finally found you, Alicia. You have advanced. We are so excited you are here.” The woman says to me.

“Excited? Why am I here? Who are you?” I ask the lady in a lab coat.

“Listen to me carefully, Alicia, you are where you are meant to be. You have forgotten that we chose a select few of you to follow throughout your entire human experience.”

What is she talking about? This lady doesn’t even look old enough to be my mom. How is this possible?

“Alicia,” she continues, “we hear your internal dialogue, and we want you to know that you are in illusion. I am not older nor younger than you. We are every age and none at all. We hear everything, we see everything, and we have evaluated every one of your life experiences. You see your life as a timeline, we see it as vibrational levels. That list you created as a child was a list you created at your most heightened state of being, the dream state. Now that it has made it back to you, you are connected again with the dream state. Did you know that we once helped you create those dreams so that you could create the most perfect Earth experience?”

Am I on drugs? I’m still not understanding what is going on here.

“Alicia, you are the first of our ten selected subjects to have reconnected to the black book. The black book is your physical representation of the experiences that can be created when you are the truest expression of yourself. What you must do now is continue creating the life of your dreams and you will be rewarded. For the faith in oneself is always rewarded. Now that you have made it this far, you are ready to advance in your skills for the next level of this experiment. Go back with this piece of knowledge: the mastering of the human experience is not based on the material world outside of you, but the energy that you produce in the making of it. The purpose of the physical world outside of you is merely a reflection of the energy you create in your inner world.”

The mysterious lady turns to her team of men and they all nod to each other at once… How odd.

“We promise that we will always be by your side, just trust us and yourself. Like I said, your hands aren’t tied. Now allow all the rest to be guided by your heart because what you desire is already within.”

∴ ∴ ∴

HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK.

My alarm is obnoxious, I need to change it already.

Lord have mercy, what a strange dream. I should really start meditating to clear up my brain before bed, so I don’t get caught up in my last thoughts of the night. How is it, that a dream that felt so real, can make waking up today feel a bit simulated? I stumble over to the bathroom mirror, still a bit discombobulated.

Gazing in my reflection, I hear the lady from my dream speak those words to me, “you are in illusion”. An illusion, why did she say that? It takes me back to being a child in a funhouse mirror maze. Seeing all those different versions of me, bumping around, and looking for any sort of direction for the way out. That is exactly how I feel single and working from home, moving about without much to look forward to.

My grandma always hated taking me to those as a child because she’d get overwhelmed and panic. The thing is, the process of finding the way out of the maze was always the most fun part for me. Maybe it is my perspective that I need to change.

“How is it, Alicia, that you have come so far and yet you are still so young?” I altered my routinely question that I ask myself every morning, yet this time leaves me a little more energized, I know I should be quite proud of myself.

I perch up on my window seal to look over the city. I see a mother passing by my building handing her child gummy bears… that could be me. The woman sitting in the parked red convertible chauffeured by a man dripped in designer clothes… well, that could be me, too. Why am I Alicia? I cannot get that lady from my dream out of my head.

Lastly, I see the poor homeless young boy on the side of the corner lifts his cardboard sign that reads, “HAVE FAITH”. I suppose that could be me, too. He does make a good point, what have I got to lose with a little more faith in my life. The unnatural feeling that this is really all there is to life is a lie, it must be.

Thump, thump. RUFF, RUFF.

There goes Winston again, scaring off the package deliverer.

My Amazon delivery!

How interesting, at the bottom of my stack of mail is a black envelope with a stamp that says, do not return to sender. Immediately, I rip open the letter from the unknown source.

There before me is a check for a whopping $20,000 with my name on it! Attached, a note that reads, “Congratulations, Subject 8. You have advanced. You now have the option to spend this how you like but choose wisely. This gift will not free you, but you can free yourself.”

That’s it, I’m filling up the damn black book.