Wonderland Wasn't a Place-It Was Me

Moonlight dripped through the hollow oak limbs overhead, pooling in silver puddles across the mossy floor of the Tulgey Wood. I sat cross-legged on a fallen log, flamingo mallet beside me and hedgehog ball half-buried in bracken, feeling the hush settle deep into my bones. All around, Wonderland’s hallmark chaos blinked and shimmered in the outskirts—teacups drifting on phantom breezes, card soldiers marching in tight formation, and the distant tinkle of the Mad Hatter’s off-key laughter.

But tonight, I felt nothing of their whimsy.

I wiped a smear of sap from my palm and looked at the battered music box in my lap. Its once-bright paint was chipped, the ballerina inside forever poised on her tiptoe. I’d found it in a dusty chest at my grandmother’s house, half-buried under yellowed letters and photographs of strangers who claimed me as their own. Since then, it had played itself at midnight, each brittle note echoing my sleepless nights.

I stood, sliding the mallet under my arm. I was tired of being drawn deeper into someone else’s story—the story of a child “chosen” but never truly known, a patchwork puzzle that never quite fit. The ballroom promises of belonging had always been an illusion. Wonderland had given me riddles instead of roots, applause instead of acceptance.

Footsteps crunched behind me. I turned to see the Doorknob, polished brass glowing in the moonlight, his round face mysterious as ever.

“You’re not on the course,” he noted, voice a gentle click and creak.

I forced a laugh, heavy in my throat. “I lost the map.”

He tilted his knob-head in that deliberate way. “Or perhaps you found the wrong one.”

I knelt and fished my own key from the pocket of my skirt—a key I’d fashioned from torn journal pages, diagnosis forms, and a snippet of my birth certificate, bound with copper wire and hope. I held it out so he could see.

“I didn’t have a choice,” I whispered. “Not when they handed me that bedtime story of being ‘special.’ I didn’t choose their version of me. I didn’t choose to be their project.” My voice cracked like dry earth underfoot. “I didn’t choose to swallow their lies.”

The Doorknob clicked softly, as if in understanding—or sympathy. He swung open the gate to the old garden, revealing a half-lit path lined with tattered lanterns. Each lantern bore a word: Belonging, Diagnosis, Compassion, Boundaries, Truth. The path wound through riotous blooms of wildflowers and brambles that whispered secrets if you listened closely.

I stepped through. At once, the hush of Wonderland’s clamor faded; the discordant laughter and shifting teacups felt miles away. I was walking into something new—something shaped by my own hands, not theirs.

________________________________________

In the clearing ahead, I found the tea table I had built myself—a squat, sturdy stump ringed with mismatched chairs, each carved from fallen branches. On the table sat an open journal, its pages fluttering in a breeze that smelled of jasmine and rain. Next to it, my music box stood silent, the ballerina’s glass eyes finally still.

I sank onto a stool—unfinished raw wood, but my own—and opened the journal to the first blank page. I traced the margin with a fingertip.

This is where I begin.

I thought back to the nights I lay awake, a child of strangers, clutching that fairytale of being “chosen.” I remembered the day at sixteen, just before my driver’s test, when my father sat me down and spoke the “truth” with the gentleness of a ledger entry: I wasn’t just adopted; I had five siblings, one of whom had been raised in a mental institution. No comfort, no lead-in, no safe space to unravel. I was shuffled back to the car, license paperwork in hand, expected to smile for the camera as though nothing had changed.

That day cracked something open inside me, though I didn’t realize it then. I blamed myself for my confusion, for the tears I stifled at the test center. I blamed myself for every meltdown, every defensive stare, every “drama” I was accused of. I thought I was broken.

It took years to learn the truth: I was not the problem. It was the world that refused to see me.

I closed the journal, eyes stinging. Then I opened the box in my lap—my music box—and wound its key one last time. The ballerina began her dance, slow and deliberate. But instead of the tinny tune that had haunted me, this time she moved without music—her skirt catching the moonlight like a promise.

I rose and placed the music box on the stump. In its fading song, I heard a new melody—one I would write myself.

________________________________________

The Doorknob hovered at the edge of the clearing. “What will you call this place?” he asked.

I looked around at the wild roses—half-wilted but persistent—and the slender lanterns that swayed above. I thought of every chapter I had lived through: the chaos of the tea party I was never invited to, the cruel hush of “talking flowers,” the crooked croquet fields, the pitfalls of misdiagnosis, and the storm of my own spiraling thoughts. I thought of the day I finally heard “Borderline Personality Disorder” not as a curse but as a key.

I drew a breath, steady as a new morning. “I’ll call it Wonderland Unlocked.”

He clicked once, then slipped away into shadow.

________________________________________

I took the flamingo mallet and pressed its curved neck into the soft earth, marking an opening in the circle of stones. Then I set the hedgehog ball in the center, its bristles worn but resilient. I planted a single wildflower beside it—a dandelion, sturdier than any rose—and knelt to pat the soil around its stem.

Above me, the lanterns glowed brighter, their words flickering in the gentle breeze. I could almost hear my future selves in that light: the gardener who would tend to new shoots of hope, the storyteller who would speak her truth without fear, the boundary-keeper who would let only those who honored her cross the threshold.

I lit a lantern of my own invention—etched with the word “Home”—and let it drift up on its invisible wire. It hovered at my shoulder height, a silent beacon against the velvet sky.

A breeze rustled the trees, scattering petals and seeds. I watched them drift away, carried by the wind to plant other gardens. And I smiled.

For the first time in a lifetime, I felt the quiet certainty of belonging. Not because someone else decreed it, but because I claimed it. I had a choice now—to write my own story, in my own world, with my own key.

I stood, gathering the mallet and ball, and turned toward the path. The lantern of Truth shone ahead. I took a single step, then another, and walked on—leaving behind the chase for a home I’d built from the pieces of my past, the courage of my present, and the promise of all that I would become.

And somewhere in the distance, the music box’s melody lingered, sweeter and softer than before—no longer a summons to chaos, but a lullaby of freedom.