Twenty Twenty Vision
By: Deneishia Jacobpito
Tags: Spirituality, LGBTQ, Fiction, Love, Self Improvement

Twenty Twenty Vision

The scent of burning blinders.

Photo by Yaoqi LAI on Unsplash

New Year’s Eve 2019

The taste of her lingered on my tongue and my skin was still warm from her touch. I closed my eyes and allowed the memory of her to caress me.

Wrapped in the bed sheet, I stood at the bottom of the stairs by the door, waiting for her to gather her things. I involuntarily inhaled, overcome by the full scope of her beauty, when she emerged from the bathroom wearing her leather jacket and boots. Her eyes held me firm before her arms could reach me, drawing me into a full body embrace as she brushed her lips against mine.

“I could stay if you want me to.” Her voice low and her lips merely a centimetre from mine.

“If you stay, you’ll be late for work tomorrow, and I won’t be able to start my year off fresh. You know, I have a plan.” I melted into her body and ran my tongue along the outline of her lips seconds before she sucked my tongue into her mouth.

“When you need to break your vow, you know who to call,” she said with a wink. She took her helmet from my hands, hypnotizing me with her confident sway as she mounted the bike. The motorcycle engine roared, I waved, and she tentatively pulled out of the driveway to return to her life. I had chosen to take a vow of celibacy for the entire year of 2020, and if I decided to have sex with someone, this woman would not be the lover I would call.

As physically satisfying, mentally stimulating, and emotionally gentle as she was, our connection was only based on sex. We used each other to fill a hole (literally, figuratively, and spiritually) and I wanted to call a partner into my life that I could grow with. I wanted balance, passion, authenticity, and equal investment in each other’s dreams and goals, in order to support their need and ability to thrive on their terms. I knew balance must first come from me and this next year I would take the time to invest my energy in my relationship with me.

As I turned to walk up the stairs, the lights flickered and a shadow appeared at the top. It felt like it was looking down at me even though I could not see eyes. I heard a voice in my head say, “divine timing” and a slight breeze, as if someone had turned on a fan, brushed my skin. I heard, “inevitably us”. I looked down at the dog, who looked up at me in confusion. If he wasn’t worried or barking, then I wasn’t worried. I shook off the experience and explained it away as fatigue. After ascending the stairs, I immediately entered the shower, and allowed the water to wash away my lover and my sex life.

The steam from the shower fogged the mirror and painted my skin a light shade of red. Evidence that the water was too hot, but I didn’t care. The heat felt comforting. It was difficult for me to gather warmth in my body lately. I couldn’t get warm, I couldn’t get comfortable, I couldn’t sleep without drinking alcohol. I couldn’t find home either in my apartment, or my body. Next year would be different. I didn’t know how, I just knew it would be different.

January — April

The brisk air ripped through my winter coat scraping the skin I had believed was safe from the elements under layers of clothing. It had been so long since I had experienced the joys and sorrows of winter. This winter was not particularly difficult or harsh. The problem was being in any sort of winter weather at all. Living in the desert for more than a decade made the slightest breeze and bit of snow feel like I was braving a storm in Antarctica. I mean, clearly a snow flurry was evidence of the end of the world right?

The world around me had been set on fire the last few months. Australia’s fires were still sweeping the continent. Covid-19 had gone from a little threat to devouring the human race at an alarming rate. Celibacy had ceased to become a choice and had graduated to more of a survival tool.

March was my last in-person contact with another human and yet, my spirit was light and my creativity was high. I began to encourage and deepen internet connections and research the results of dopamine on the brain.

My dream life became very vibrant. I was constantly dreaming about a lover and the message in the dream was consistently the same, “I will always find you”, “We are inevitably us”, and “I’m coming to you”. I could never see the person’s face. I could see their body but had no clue who this person may be. I believed the dreams were both prophetic as well as my subconscious dealing with the dopamine withdrawal of human interaction, especially sexual engagement. So I started doing more art, finding other ways to express my desires. If my art was getting such a boost from not having sex, what kind of boost could I experience if I also gave up drinking and smoking?

May — August

My dreams had turned into nightmares. My lover was still in them but we were saving each other from one perilous event or another. My home country was awakening to all of the holes in the system. Awakening to all of the people who had been allowed to fall through those holes over the centuries. The commercialism of spirituality kicked into high gear. Forest fires raged all over the United States. I was still afraid to contract the virus and only received grocery deliveries. I had not seen another human face to face, no handshakes, and no hugs for more than 150 days. Small moments of joy were over shadowed by insomnia, loneliness, and despair.

In order to rein in my darkness, I began to run again and vigilantly monitored my diet and exercise. No drinking, no sex, no smoking, I was running, and balancing my diet. All of that change left me without a way to self-medicate and no way to numb my feelings. Childhood wounds began to ask for healing and finally, I had the time, capacity, and desire to follow through. In my dreams, my lover would repeat, “I’m proud of you”, “I’m working to match you”, “I don’t deserve you but I’m working hard to be better for me and us”. It was the most fulfilling relationship and yet, it was all in my head.

I recognized that my journal, my paintings, my poetry, and original songs were all reflecting a level of strength and self-confidence I had not lived in before. The most difficult year for the rest of the world was shaping up to be the catalyst for unprecedented emotional, spiritual, and physical growth in my personal experience.

September — December

The autumn arrived in glorious splendor of colors and cool air at an unprecedented level of vibrancy. I thought I had experienced the beauty of Fall before but, apparently, I was wrong.

By this time I had stopped drinking, lost weight, cleaned up my eating habits, refocused my spiritual practice, and begun nurturing a more invigorating relationship with my creativity. I felt like the fledgling vampire or werewolf experiencing their first change. I was interacting with the world through newly enhanced senses.

My understanding of spirit, human interaction, love, magic, connectivity, and community deepened and previous theories that I could not understand suddenly made complete sense.

I was no longer feeling lack, or need. I no longer anticipated fulfillment, I just lived fulfilled. I was intimately in-tune with my physical body, my spiritual body, and my empath body. I wasn’t chasing love, money, career, companionship, or waiting until “the right time” to act. I was complete, content, and unafraid. I knew myself, trusted myself, and therefore, knew the universe and how the universe operated not only around me but within me.

New Year’s Eve 2020

Exactly one year has now passed. My skin steamed as I walked out of the shower and stood naked in front of the mirror. The mirror’s foggy reflection looked back at me through the steam. Out loud, I spoke to the reflection, “You are beautiful. You are growing better every day. Your love and kindness are evident to everyone who comes in contact with you. You experience abundance in every area of your life.”

I moved to wipe the fog off the mirror but my hand froze, my body stiffened, drowning in disbelief and fear. My reflection moved, but I did not. The figure cleared the fog from her side of the mirror. I must be having a stroke. I just saw my reflection move independently. That can’t be a great sign of the status of my mental health.

The face looking back at me from the other side of the mirror resembled me but wasn’t exactly me. Her skin was better, her teeth were fixed, her makeup was flawless, and her smile was more genuine.

The reflection reached forward and her hand emerged from the glass. Quickly her arm, shoulder, and the top half of her body followed suit. She got stuck at her waist and kindly looked up at me. “Could you possibly give us a hand here?” she asked politely.

Strangely, not only did she have makeup on, but she was also fully dressed. I couldn’t speak but I did give her support as she crawled her way out of the mirror to find herself looking at me, face to face, in the real world.

“Well, ‘real world’ is relative don’t you think?” she asked. I allowed my stunned expression to take over my face. She laughed. “I’m you, well…I was you. I remember exactly what I was thinking so, yeah, I know what you’re thinking.”

I stood still, waiting for the hallucination to end, wondered if I should put on some clothes, or if I should just stand there looking as awkward as I felt. “It doesn’t matter what you do really. It’s not like I haven’t seen this body before, and also, you won’t be here that long.”

Stunned, I finally found the strength to speak. “Are you going to kill me?” I asked tentatively and looked around the bathroom for suitable weaponry with which to defend myself.

She looked amused as she replied, “No, of course not. You, you killed you.” My confusion forced her to elaborate. “You’ve been healing the wounds of our childhood. You released the bitterness and guilt from relationships in our past. You connected to spirit in a way that you hadn’t before. You are…quite frankly, an outdated version of us. So you will be disappearing shortly. I’m here to move us forward through the next phase of life. No limiting fears, an abundance of joy, money, and love in every form. We are doing really well further along this timeline. Thank you for going through the pain and the lessons, but most of all, thank you for growing, and answering when divinity called.”

My body felt warm. I had been cold for so long, I had forgotten what genuine warmth felt like. My skin kept getting warmer and I began to worry. “Don’t worry,” she said, “It’s all a part of the process”. She was interrupted by a knock on the front door.

“Who is that?” I asked, shaking and beginning to sweat.

“That’s our love, she’s amazing. Love at first sight, but, we went slowly and didn’t rush in this time. She just replaced her lower vibration self as well, I thought she’d take longer than that.” She smiled at me and gave me a hug. “It really was wonderful being you, even through all that pain,” she whispered in my ear.

I stood in the bathroom — my body was glowing red now. My higher self had opened the door and was kissing the woman on the other side. She was right, our love is perfect. From the top of the stairs I could see she was shorter than me, and stronger. Her arms were so chiseled. I still couldn’t see her face and it frustrated me. I had been dreaming about this woman for a year, why couldn’t I see her face?

Immediately flames erupted around my face. Large cataracts fell from my eyes and burned away at my feet. My heart began to glow through my chest and I was overcome with perfect love wrapped up in calmness, joy, and contentment. My counterpart at the bottom of the stairs turned to look up at me. The lights flickered and in a flash of lightning, I was floating above my other self and slowly melting into the embrace of the universe, fading into all of consciousness.

“Are you ready for this?” asked our love. I saw my other self grab the hand of our partner and snuggle her head in the crook of their neck.

“Thank you for being here with me. I’m ready for anything as long as you are here,” I heard my other self reply.

“I’ve been preparing for ‘us’ my entire life and there is nowhere else I would rather be,” they responded. I allowed myself to unravel in the embrace of the universe after I watched my other self walk confidently into our future.