Someone Else's Ocean

by Kate Stewart

I had spent way too much of my life looking forward to things. Those things rarely ever came the way I’d imagined them. Certainties were pap smears, head colds, and flat tires. But the feeling you got wrapped up in a good book, the perfect song, surrounded by candlelight could be repeated over and over. Endless self-made memories that no one could screw up? Yes, please. Because when

Instead of continuing to live a life I couldn’t live, I chose me.”

And so, I’m here living someone else’s life, in someone else’s house staring at someone else’s ocean.”

He knew my secrets, my fears and asked me constantly what my hopes were, to which I had no reply.

But I had learned I didn’t need big dreams and accomplishments to matter.

His friendship was a rare gift when it came to acceptance.

I was weeks away from thirty years old and had just found my first love. And my soulmate. But not my forever.

She was my golden shore after the shipwreck that was my life and she’d loved me with her whole heart, only to let me break it.