Somebody that I used to know.

Living Someone Else's Life

I know I’m not dreaming anymore when I hear the freight train rumble past. I don’t open my eyes right away while I consider where I am now. Sunken into a deep set of lounge cushions, wrapped in my fleece, I breathe in the scent of an unfamiliar pillow case. I’m worn out from traveling in someone else’s car, looking out someone else’s window at someone else’s town. I’ve passed by offices, shops and parks that someone else visits regularly. My toes touch down in someone else’s footprint on the beach. Someone else’s dog runs up for a pat and a lick and I walk passed someone else’s sandcastle.

I look into someone else’s mirror at my reflection with yet another backdrop behind me. Turning on someone else’s tap, I rinse the sand from my sun-kissed hands. I wash my hair with someone else’s conditioner under someone else’s hot running water. Dried with someone else’s towel, I put on someone else’s skirt and shoes, my familiar tee adding comfort and familiarity. “Mine,” and gifts, and things-borrowed all tumble together around my heavy backpack. With a passport and unknown destinations, somehow I’m filling up on someone else’s.

I bite into the food of yet another unfamiliar farmer, brought home in someone else’s grocery bag. I use someone else’s knife to chop the fresh greens from someone else’s garden after I wash off the dark soil from someone else’s land. Sitting at someone else’s oakwood table, set with a vase of flowers and eclectic collection of dishes, I enjoy the first taste off someone else’s fork. I reach into the salt dish amongst the impressions of someone else’s finger and thumb to pinch just enough to flavour the multigrain sourdough from someone else’s toaster. When we’re finished I carry everyone else’s plates to the sink and rub them with soap using someone else’s sponge. When the kettle’s hot, we all share a pot of fresh brewed tea enjoying each other’s company. I take in the warmth, aroma and flavour of the chai as I press my lips against the rim of the mug someone else has used so many other days of the past.

The beautiful moon is beginning to seem brighter in the darkening starry sky as our unfailing sun slips down behind someone else’s farmhouse. I shift into fifth gear with my foot on someone else’s clutch, accelerating with the petrol supplied by someone else’s station where I topped up someone else’s tank. I’m listening to someone else’s music as I turn on the wipers to clean someone else’s windscreen. I keep my gaze ahead on the horizon as someone else’s paddocks fly by us along the roadside, my hands gripping someone else’s steering wheel. I’m on my way to someone else’s house. I’ll walk through someone else’s doorway, set my bags down and sit back on someone else’s lounge.

While my eyes are full of the passing view of someone else’s trees growing behind someone else’s house, my mind is filled with the faces of someone else’s friends and family, the memory of my own blended with the new. The colours of someone else’s fashion slide along the words of someone else’s opinions as my mind considers someone else’s way of living. I’ve heard the lesson’s from someone else’s God and I’ve challenged the understanding for someone else’s beliefs. I dream of helping someone else’s children to succeed in this world we all share, whether we acknowledge it or not. I open my eyes, looking at someone else’s ceiling, and look forward to another day in someone else’s life. I feel my steady breath keeping my heart pumping and my body strong and healthy. I know my smile is always ready to be offered to someone else.

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Written in Euroa, edited in Melbourne, published in Hobart, read in... Someone else's life!