IF I HAD 9 LIVES #HALEYGRACE

If I had nine lives, I'd spend the first one drowning, feel the water, seep into my lungs, stealing my oxygen and stripping my breath. Maybe after I'd become unconscious, I'd find peace, and I would no longer fear the ocean. I could spend the rest of my eight lives living by the water, living with no fears. For my next two, I'd spend each one with my parents, living their shadows, learn their deepest secrets, and listen to their regrets, just so I don't fuck up lives four through nine. I'll hold their hands gently and watch them take their last breaths. In my fourth life, I'll run away. I'll run away from myself. A person I cannot change, because I'm too naive to understand that I am all the things that are wrong. I'll chase butterflies and try to find myself. I'll look in all the wrong places, wrong cities, wrong people. And before I know it, I've ran through three of my nine lives. In my seventh life, I'll listen to my parents' advice. I'll work a nine to five, make a stable income, and settle down with a man I'm not sure I'm up with, but he is a good father to my children. He will have a white picket fence for a door, and a big fluffy dog. One that barks at the mailman. For my eighth life, I'll live alone. I'll write books, live in a little apartment in New York City. It's been my days writing in a cafe around the block from where I live, and drink wine before bed. I'll do yoga, eat clean, and have an occasional cigarette off my balcony. I'll raise a cat by myself, and he will watch me take my last breath. Before my last life, in my final life, I'll look for you. I'll wait at bus stops, move back to our hometown, try and find you at shitty dive bars, and write letters I'll never send. I'll realize that after eight lives, something was missing. Going about life without the person I love made it all seem meaningless, but I don't have nine lives. I just have this one. So I guess I'll spend it, sitting by the ocean, and waiting for you.