Eight years ago, I followed the proverbial “white rabbit.”

Down the rabbit hole I fell, never to return…

…from where I came.

Much like Alice, I arrived in Wonderland — a waking dream-like reality more vivid and potent than anything I’d ever experienced.

Curiouser and curiouser.

In Wonderland, nothing is as it seems. Time is a mirage, symbols and synchronicities are the native tongues, and linear thinking often takes one backwards.

I was in the same place, and simultaneously, I was someplace new.

Waking up is a beautiful and tragic process.

I recently watched Alice in Wonderland (the 2010 Tim Burton version) and a part of it struck me like a lightening bolt.

When Alice enters Wonderland, the characters in her dream, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Cheshire Cat, Caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, keep declaring in some form: “it’s the wrong Alice!”

Alice is confused by this at first, and then becomes indignant and finally replies: “How can I be the wrong Alice when this is my dream?”

I’ve been sitting with that one for a week.

The tragedy of waking up is realizing how long you’ve spent feeling like the wrong version of yourself.

The beautiful part is remembering that you can’t be wrong when it’s your dream.