On the Edge of Every Possible Life
Everything fell apart. And then a door opened.
Some nights, it hits me. The ache of what almost was. But hey, it’s not devastation—it’s recognition. Of how fully I believed. Of how real it all felt. That life, the one I made space for, shaped myself around, built toward… didn’t happen. And that’s a tender thing to carry. But it doesn’t mean I lost everything. Just one version of everything.
Maybe that’s the most surprising part: the end of that imagined life cracked open space for a dozen other lives I’d never considered. And I’m starting to believe that what comes next isn’t a consolation prize. It’s the plot twist. The kind that reshapes everything.
In one version of my life, I live in a city I’ve never set foot in before. I rent a sun-drenched apartment with noisy floors and a poorly-built bookshelf, where my neighbors wave to me through open windows. I spend my Sundays pretending I know how to navigate the crowded neighborhood grocery store, buying cheeses I can’t pronounce, and texting friends back home that yes, I’m fine, just mildly overwhelmed. Maybe I fall in love with someone that isn’t my usual type, and who sees all my quirks as charm. Or, maybe, I don’t. Maybe the city becomes the love story.
In another version, I take the job that scares me. The one with no roadmap. The one I didn’t go to school for. I stop asking for permission and finally pitch that wild idea in a boardroom full of safe ones. I spend my mornings with words and my evenings with people who make me forget to check my phone. There’s a life where I work less, maybe. Or, better yet—I work for myself. Where my calendar has white space again. Where I’m no longer building someone else’s dream, but carving out my own.
There’s a version where I’m surrounded by messy, beautiful noise. Where I wake up to small feet padding across the wooden floor and someone calling me Mom. There are fingerprints on the fridge, a trail of toys under the dining table, and sticky hands reaching for my face before I’ve even had a chance to wash it. My husband is half-asleep but already making us coffee. There are school drop-offs filled with mismatched shoes, late-night fevers, and crayon drawings all over the living room walls that I can’t quite bring myself to clean off.
Or maybe, I’m the wild aunt in this life. The one who sends handwritten postcards from every country and keeps stamps, earrings, and spare currency all tangled in the same drawer. I show up to family holidays in oversized sunglasses, bearing gifts for everybody. I’ve got a lover in every continent: one who teaches me to cook in Sicily, one who tangoes with me in Buenos Aires, one who listens to my poems like they’re prayers in a London flat that smells like bergamot. I have a group of friends who feel like home. We toast to each other’s wins with champagne on Tuesdays and send voice notes about everything from heartbreak to haircuts. There are no expectations. No timelines. Just joy, stitched together from every small decision to choose myself.
In another version, I find love again. He’s a foodie, like me. He gets it. We spend Friday nights trying new restaurants and slipping into dimly lit cocktail bars—the kind with ten tables and servers who are too cool to write anything down. He never teases me for ordering three appetizers and calling it dinner. When the weather’s warm, we walk everywhere. We take the long way home just because it’s golden hour and the city feels alive. In the winter, we retreat to a cozy cabin—one with a fireplace, board games, and nothing urgent to do. We read in thick socks and make elaborate breakfasts. There’s no rescuing, no shrinking, no second-guessing. We’re not trying to fix each other. We just fit.
In a different timeline, I travel often and alone. Not to escape, but to savor. I wander through cities I once hurried through, but this time, I linger. I book the better room, the one with the view. I sit at the bar and order the wine I really want. I take myself out to dinner without a phone to hide behind. Just me, dipping warm bread into a mix of olive oil and Parmigiano, people-watching at a sunlit plaza, letting the salt air kiss my shoulders. I don’t rush through the solitude, because maybe this is the last time I’ll be truly alone in this way. But right now, I’m the main character. So I ask strangers to take my photo.
There’s another version of my life where two dogs rule my life and I rule the City. They’re small enough to turn heads and gentle enough to curl up at my feet as I work. We live in a high-rise with views that stretch for miles and sidewalks that lead to every neighborhood café. We’re a package deal, and everyone knows it. Weekends mean long walks through hidden city gardens, bottomless-brunch patios where they charm strangers, and slow evenings buried in a book—their tiny snores humming like white noise in the background.
In another life, I live by the ocean, close enough to hear the waves from my kitchen window. My home smells like sea salt and citrus, with linen curtains that flow in the breeze and a record player always spinning something mellow. I write in the mornings—coffee in one hand, pen in the other. Afternoons are for bike rides to the local market, long, tipsy lunches with friends who stay, and painting (something I finally gave myself permission to learn). My days aren’t rushed. They finally feel like a life I don’t need a vacation from.
Or maybe my life isn’t meant to be that chill. Maybe there’s a life in which my husband’s success unlocks doors I once only dreamed of. We wake up in a penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows spilling light onto marble countertops and plush sofas. Our mornings begin with fresh pastries from the city’s best bakery, paired with espresso so rich it tastes like velvet. Weekends are a blur of art openings, private wine tastings, and spontaneous trips on our yacht. We don’t have children, by choice, and instead fill our lives with beauty, experience, and indulgence. We live a life of curated luxuries where freedom is the greatest wealth of all.
Or maybe, I give myself all those luxuries. I stay hungry, ambitious, relentless in the best way. I rise through the ranks doing work that lights my brain on fire. Late nights spent chasing the perfect idea, early mornings rewriting the rules. My name carries weight in rooms I never thought I’d be invited into. I’m surrounded by a team of brilliant minds. We push each other higher. I wear beautiful things. I take myself to dinner at restaurants with impossible reservations. I only fly first class. I create a life where every corner of it feels inspiring, and I never once apologize for how brightly I burn.
I love to think there’s also a version where I live with my sister and her dog in a small town, the kind of place where strangers stop to ask how your day is going. Maybe I have a dog of my own, too. We share a kitchen with pots simmering on the stove and windows open to the scent of fresh earth. Saturday mornings are for farmers markets where I pick the ripest peaches and she insists we make homemade cinnamon rolls. There’s a little garden out back where I grow wildflowers and herbs I never thought I’d remember to water. The pace here is slow, and the stars are brighter and the nights quieter that I had imagined for myself.
Actually, there’s also a version where nothing huge changes, except me. I stay right here, in the same city, same apartment, same group of friends. But something seismic happens internally. I start saying yes to more things. I buy the ticket. I RSVP. I show up. I try that pottery workshop that’s been sitting in my bookmarks for two years. I finally sign up for French classes again. I text first. I eat dinner at the dining table instead of on the couch. I stop waiting for someone else to give my life meaning. I notice that this once-lonely space has turned into something sacred. That I built something steady and warm from scratch.
The truth is, I have no idea which life will be mine. I hope I’ll get to have pieces of all of them, at different times. Or maybe, I’m meant to live something entirely new, so grand that my little mind can’t even dare to dream it up. And while there’s grief in letting go of the life I thought I was building, there’s something liberating (as a recovering control freak) about admitting I have no clue what’s coming.
So maybe that’s what this next chapter is about. About not racing toward a “better” version of what I lost, but opening myself up to what I couldn’t have imagined when I was trying so hard to make one story work. There’s magic in what the universe has planned for me! There’s excitement in not knowing! There’s hope in every blank page! (Right? RIGHT?!?!?!) But really, I think wherever I end up, I’ll be glad I gave myself the chance to begin again.
Thank you for reading and I shall see you soon. 💛
Love this🤍there IS hope!!!