WINDOWLESS VANS

I wake up in the middle of the night a lot lately- usually in a cold sweat- usually unsure where I am, which body, which lifetime. I find myself walking into walls, forgetting myself in Ubers, and negotiating with dead ends as if in better light they might be doorways.

My life stopped making sense recently, or maybe it actually makes more sense. Maybe this was something I’ve always known was coming, not because I wanted it, but because it was always predetermined. It’s a script I didn’t write- just frantically tried to name, shape and control.

It’s humiliating in a way, how little free will we have in this lifetime. How things happen to us, no matter how hard we try to avoid them. How certain things can undo us despite every instinct telling us not to touch them.

I was always afraid as a child. Of being kidnapped, of being left in the dark, of alien abductions, men with goatees, trash compactors, windowless vans, Victorian dolls, and math. I lived on high alert, convinced that if I stayed vigilant enough, if I carried an industrial-sized staple gun in my backpack, I’d be able to protect myself from whatever harm was coming.

It’s easy to feign discernment. To perform maturity. To avoid the wounds that raised us. To sidestep landmines because they look and feel too much like our mothers. But destiny has a way of dragging us toward ourselves whether we consent to it or not. It’s happening anyway. The real question becomes: how hard do we protest? How long before it takes us, regardless?

My birthday is in two weeks. It’s not a significant birthday except that it will be one I will never forget, as it will split my life into two halves, and me into two women. One who desperately wants control, and another taking a baseball bat to every practical decision that has come before.

I’m not at the part of my story where I’d classify this as an evolution. I’m in a place where I’m being dismantled from the inside out. And maybe the most shocking part is that I don’t want it to stop.

I’m in the windowless van now, abducted by aliens, surrounded by Victorian dolls, whispering, “Yes. This. This is the thing you were trying to avoid your entire life.”