I lay in bed beside Trai’Jon with the fan turning slowly beside me, my eyes open in the dark.
Trai’Jon was my best friend and my husband.
He stood tall, with an athletic build that showed years of working out. His chocolate skin caught the light, and his strong facial bones gave him a look people noticed when he walked into a room. He was attractive, and I knew that. But if I was being honest with myself, his looks had never been the reason I married him. I never felt physically attracted to him.
I stared at the fan turning slowly beside me. The breeze tickled the one piece of hair that had escaped from my scarf. My mind refused to slow down.
What pulled us together was something deeper. We had shared the broken pieces of our past, and we understood things about each other that other people didn’t. The things we had survived created a bond between us that felt almost unbreakable. At the time, I thought that was enough.
Trai was funny. He had a good heart in his own way, and he was someone I could talk to without feeling judged. And I loved his family. That was part of why I married him. I wanted to be closer to them, and I also wanted to get away from mine.
Looking back, I could see how much of my life had been shaped by trying to find somewhere I felt safe.
The wind from the fan was softly blowing on my eyelids, and they were beginning to get heavy. The soft hum had a hypnotizing effect. My mind continued to wander.
There had been another man once, someone who made me feel safe in a way Trai never had. He could shield me from fear without my ever having to ask. Sometimes I still wonder about that. Why didn’t we get married? I never had an answer, and the question stayed with me. A protector or comforter, Trai was not.
And then there was Trai’s other side. To the world, he looked like a man who loved me to death. Everyone saw it—everyone except the women he was talking to. I had known for a long time that he was a womanizer, and the games he played weren’t new to me. Still, knowing something and being willing to face what it meant were two different things.
I lay there thinking about all of it. I yawned into my pillow. My body loosened, my thoughts slowed and drifted apart, and then I was somewhere else.
The first thing I noticed was the gold. It covered everything. I looked around, then up, and then up again.
The structure looked like the Colosseum in Rome. At least that was the closest thing my mind could compare it to. Trai had been to the real one on vacation. But this was far larger. The rows of seats climbed higher and farther than anything I had ever seen, stretching so far into the distance that I couldn’t see where they ended. There had to be millions of seats. Maybe billions. And they were filled.
I stood there trying to take it all in. There were beings everywhere. Some looked almost human, and others didn’t. Some had long limbs, some had shimmering skin, and some had eyes that seemed to glow. Others looked metallic or almost transparent. I couldn’t make out every face, but I knew they were watching me, and the whole place felt alive.
I looked toward the center, where a raised platform stood, and I stared at it. Then I heard a voice. It didn’t come from somewhere outside of me. It came from inside.
“No, Alexis. This is not a dream.”
I froze.
“It is your time.”
I looked around. “Time for what?”
“Time for you to wake up and remember who you are.”
My heart began to beat faster. I looked back at the beings surrounding me, millions of them, maybe billions. Somehow, I wasn’t afraid. There was something familiar about them that I couldn’t explain. And underneath it was a feeling I had no words for. It was joy and peace, and a love unlike anything I had known. I couldn’t explain it, only feel it.
“Look around,” the voice said. “We’re all here to support you on your journey.”
I looked toward the center of the platform again. There was an orb now, radiant and bright. It had no face and no body, only light, and it seemed to glow from somewhere deep inside itself. I stared at it.
Then the message came.
“Remember who you are.”
I woke up. Sunlight was coming through the room, and for a few seconds I just lay there with the vision still sitting in my mind. The gold. The Colosseum. The beings. The orb. The voice. Remember who you are.
Then I smelled bacon.
I got up, and Trai was already in the kitchen.
“Morning,” he said.
“Morning.”
He was already up and packing, moving fast, his eyes lit up. “I’ve got to make a delivery in Wisconsin.”
“Wisconsin?”
“Yeah. I’ll be gone a couple weeks.”
My heart sank, and I smiled anyway. “Aww. Must you leave, dear?”
I was working to hold back my own excitement. The house to myself. The quiet. No interruptions. No one needed anything.
Then I noticed a swimsuit tossed in his bag. I looked at it, then at him.
“Why do you have a swimsuit?”
He glanced down. “I might swim at the hotel.”
I raised an eyebrow. “On a work trip?”
“Why not?” He flashed that charming smile.
“You know I don’t sleep well when I’m away from you, love,” he said. “And you know you don’t like to stay on the phone late.”
A twinge of jealousy, picturing him enjoying himself without me. And right next to it, the longing for time to myself.
He finished packing, and a little while later he was gone. The door closed behind him, and the house went quiet. Really quiet. I stood there for a moment.
I needed a reset. I lit some candles and turned on my salt lamp. I made an appointment for a yoni cleanse at my cousin’s salon, then scheduled Reiki. I changed the sheets—fresh comforter, fresh space—and put my phone on silent. I made myself some tea and sat for a while, but my mind was still moving, so I took a shower and let the warm water run over my skin.
It had been almost a week since I’d really had time to myself. Five days of being available. Friends, family emergencies, colleagues needing advice, people needing something. By the time I stepped out of the shower, I realized how tired I was. I had been giving so much of myself that there wasn’t much left for me. I felt like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. I thought I was handling everything fine, but my body was telling me something different.
I got dressed and headed to the salon.
As I pulled out of the driveway, I started thinking about all the people who seemed to need me. How would they manage if I wasn’t here? What if I moved? What if I left the state completely? The thought stayed with me as I drove, and soon I reached the bridge, the river below glistening in the morning light.
Then I heard it.
“Stay in your lane.”
I looked around. I was alone.
I am in my lane, I answered in my head.
The voice came again. “Stay in your lane.”
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, and the message became clear. It wasn’t only the lane I was driving in. It was also my lane in life. Don’t keep veering left and right every time somebody crosses your path. Their road is not yours.
I thought about how many times I had jumped into somebody else’s situation, how many battles I had fought because I knew how to fight them, and how many times I had stepped in to fix, mend, or heal something, even when nobody asked me to.
Then my phone rang. Mom.
“Hey, Mom.”
She was upset. Our family’s little hellraiser, my grandmother, was giving her trouble again. My mother’s voice rose as she explained what was happening, and I listened while that familiar heat moved through me. I knew this game. My grandmother had played it with me plenty of times, and I finally put her in her place.
I told my mother I would call her back, and then I called my grandmother.
She answered, and I didn’t waste time.
“I know what you’re doing, and I’m not playing these games with Mom.”
She went through the usual tactics. Denial, then shame, then guilt. Then came the words. That was Grandmom’s way. If she couldn’t get what she wanted any other way, she knew how to slide a low-key curse into a conversation and see if it would stick. She had a way with words, and usually, when Grandmom said something threatening enough, the action followed.
But I learned something about her. You didn’t accept it; you rejected it. That was the difference.
I let her talk. Then she said something that made me stop, and I cut her off.
“Are you sure this is the game you want to play?”
Silence.
“Because if your hands aren’t clean, you have more to lose than I do.”
She knew exactly what I meant. Her health had been failing, but she preferred not to think about it.
The line went dead. I pulled the phone from my ear and stared at the screen.
“Did she just hang up on me?”
I looked at it for a second longer. Then I laughed, out loud, alone in the car.
“Okay, Grandmom.”
I looked back at the road. Stay in your lane. There I was again, jumping into somebody else’s battle. I’d been handed the lesson and failed the test in the same breath.
By the time I reached the salon, I was still laughing at myself. I hadn’t stayed in my lane. I had gotten involved in a battle that wasn’t mine to fight.
I hated seeing my mother suffer. I knew her emotional wounds were part of the reason for the illnesses in her body, and I wanted her to heal. But I couldn’t do that for her. I could have an honest conversation. I could share what I saw. I could hope she chose to forgive and release it. But the healing belonged to her.
Sitting there in the quiet of the salon, I knew I needed to take my own advice. I forgave myself for slipping.
“Thank you,” I whispered, and I let it go.
“It is hot out here today!” I said as I stepped out of the salon.
Ice cream. That’s exactly what I wanted. No, I needed ice cream. I knew I was allergic to some form of dairy, but today? We—as in me—were taking the chance. The creamery was only five minutes away.
I took the back roads, and an old train came rolling through town. I stopped letting it pass. That’s when I noticed the double rainbow stretching across the sky. Now that was pretty. I didn’t think I’d ever seen one before.
The train caught my attention again. People were looking out the windows. Some smiled. Some waved. I waved back, smiling as I watched them pass.
When the last car disappeared, I sat there thinking about how good my life really was. Maybe I didn’t need to keep looking at everything that was wrong.
By sunset, I felt lighter. I called Trai, and it went straight to voicemail. For a second I felt disappointed. Then I caught myself. I didn’t need his attention to have a good evening. I closed my eyes and breathed.
Peace.
The next day, I called Sataria. She answered in the second ring.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hey, baby.”
We talked for a minute before I told her about the dream. I walked her through the Colosseum, the gold, the beings, the platform, and the orb. Then I told her what the voice had said.
“Mom, I remember you telling me how you felt when you were little, how you always felt like you belonged somewhere up among the stars.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear for a second. “Girl, you remember that? That was so long ago!”
Sataria laughed. “How could I forget? You used to make up those bedtime stories about Star Children and all their adventures. I’d ask you for another one every night.”
I laughed. “You did love those stories.”
“Loved them? Mom, they were the best part of our nights!” She paused. “You know what’s funny? You were always talking about Star Children before either of us knew anything about them.”
I sat quietly, thinking back to those nights when I’d make up stories just to keep her entertained.
“Maybe I was telling on myself,” I said.
“Maybe you were!” she teased. “And now you’re having dreams about golden places, strange beings, and voices telling you to remember who you are? Mom, come on!”
I burst out laughing. “Girl, don’t start!”
“I’m just saying! You tell me what you think.”
“I don’t know, baby. I’m trying to figure it out myself.”
“Well, whatever it is, it sounds a whole lot like the stories you used to tell me.”
I smiled, holding the phone against my ear. “You know, I never thought I’d be sitting here having this conversation with you.”
“Neither did I, Mom.”
We stayed on the phone a little longer, laughing about those old bedtime stories before we finally said goodbye.
I put my phone down and looked out the window.
Remember who you are.
I heard the words again, just as clear as before.
I hadn’t told anyone else about what happened. Some things I needed to sit with before I let anybody else have an opinion about them.
And this? This was mine to figure out.