In 5 Years Time

July 9th, 2014. At 3pm Kris woke me up with a gentle knock at the door, "Morgan, the police are here for you." The US Marshalls had found me. It hadn't taken long. I’d had warrants for 6 weeks but had been strung out for years. I spent the next four and a half years in varying forms of confinement.

July 9th, 2019. It's Argentine Independence day and I'm watching a military parade march down an avenue in their capitol city. Planes fly overhead.

Summer 2009: State-of-the art jets fly over head. I'm 19 years old and my Air Force recruiter roped me into working the Hillsboro air show. I am leaving for basic in two months.

July 9th, 2009: I'm on the way to Oregon country fair for the first time, listening to the song “5 years time” by Noah and the whale, thinking about where I'll be in 5 years. (See above.)

July 9th, 2016: it's the two year anniversary of my arrest and I'm sitting at a computer kiosk in the drug treatment unit of a federal prison, reflecting on my life.

July 9th, 2018: My case manager affixes a bulky GPS monitor to my left ankle. It's a privilege, I'm told, to have to plug myself in two hours a day like a human electronic. It means I can leave the halfway house and it's incessant pat downs and metal detectors.

July 9th, 2019: I'm walking down the street in Buenos Aires, reflecting on my life. To commemorate all the needles I pierced my skin with, I pierced my skin with yet more needles and got a new tattoo. It's a lyric that Myriah once dedicated to me, once made my mom weep.

My eyes are wide open today. I see clearly all the lives I've lived.

Life as you know it is not life itself. When life as you know it is over, it doesn't mean life itself is over. You'll create a new life, it will look nothing like the one before. You'll experience moments of despair because you can't possibly imagine what is to come. You feel like you're life is over. It is not.