Living? Or surviving? Are they unsettling questions, these? No, not really.

My friend (and for a short while roommate) Keith hung himself in 1987, his pretty but flirtatious wife having a baby on the way that wasn’t his, that she told him she didn’t know whose it was, whatever that implies. Sometimes life is literally a bitch.

I understood it. In all honesty, quitting was an option which had crossed my mind. Life was hard for my little rat-pack back then, as were decisions. We were young, poor, barely educated… the road ahead had an ominous feel.

Since then I have married and watched our daughter grow into a woman (and two granddaughters as well). I have had the good fortune to travel much of the world with someone I love, have lived vicariously through 5 dogs, have enjoyed success doing something I grew to love as my engagement in it increased, and I am still to this day enjoying George Strait’s music, something my friend Keith, a proud Texan, taught me to appreciate through his “western swing” singing and playing as we killed time in our little apartment way back when. I even bought myself a guitar in homage to Keith, but I never got very good with it. Playing the thing was not as easy as Keith made it appear. Sometimes life is like that. Sometimes we fail as we circumnavigate life… as we survive it.

The clock doesn’t stop when we do. So many minutes, and hours, and days since 1987, not to mention the years. So much time to do, and to be. So much joy and pain delivered in that time. So much life granted.

I’m not too proud. I’ll take survival. It was survival allowed all that living, and both beat hell out of the third option.

A treasure chest rests before me full of all the things I'd long thought gone.

The dollar store barbie dolls fashioned with my own sewings sleep atop one another. The stuffed hand me down animals lay lifelessly on their backs. My first baby doll still wearing the marker makeup I painted on her face so long ago. So many lost childhood items, and yet there's one thing I seek.

I remove each item from the top carefully: toys, 25 cent vending machine jewelry, skates, worn out shoes, fake makeup, dress up clothes, an old tea set, and various other items as I slowly make my way to its depths.

"She has to be here somewhere," I say as I dig deeper into the chest, removing photographs of my grandparents, a framed picture of my once happy family, a bottle of joy, a capsule of peace, and a canister of hope.

"Where could she be, come on." I'm almost at the bottom of the chest when I remove a white dress that belonged to my mother, and I would later use to pretend to be a bride. I raise it up and take in its simplicity and beauty. It's old in its fashion, but the sparkles remain intact along with its long trained veil. Memories flood of a young me, twirling in front of the mirror pretending to be a bride, hoping for a love like the one my parents once shared. I smile when the dress is snatched from my hand followed by a child's laughter.

There she is.

She twirls with the dress as her short, bouncy curls float in the air, and her dimples sink deep into her cheeks. So young, so innocent, so...pure.

"There you are," I say as she stares up at me with her deep green-blue eyes, full of promise and hope.

"Here I am," she giggles, "aren't I the prettiest bride? I'm going to marry the handsomest man and be in movies, and have kids, and have lots of money to buy 25 ponies."

"25 ponies? Don't you think thats a little too much?" I tease.

"No because I'm going to have a big house with a huge stable for the ponies, and lots of puppies. Oh, and a giant pool I can swim in whenever I want."

"Is that so?" I ask.

"Yes! when I'm a grown-up, I'll have everything I ever wanted and more. Maybe I'll even be a famous singer or...or a writer. My teacher says I'm the best writer in class, and I should write more stories."

I smile. I look at her studying every curvature of her face. The untainted skin and eyes full of so much life. Joy that can't be disrupted no matter the chaos. She always finds the good in everything...and everyone. She's everything I used to be...until I lost her.

"Well?" she asks as she fashions her dress in front of the mirror, "what do you want?"

A simple yet deep question. What do I want? I used to know, but somewhere along the journey I lost it. Dreams died. Hopes laid to rest. Pain deepened, and what I wanted didn't matter. I lost it. I lost her. The little girl who had big hopes and dreams, who looked at everything with wonder and possibility, soon replaced by a 30-year-old woman filled with fear and harsh realities.

"Well, I wanted to find you, and I did."

"Me? Why?" she says, crinkling her eyebrows in confusion.

"Because" I say picking up and putting on a familiar red dress that fits perfectly now. I grab the tea set in the corner of the treasure chest and set it on the ground, "I wanted to have a dress up tea party, and thought you'd be the perfect person to have it with. Are you in?"

She squeals with delight as she snatches the baby doll, the barbies and a few stuffed animals to join the party.

I admire her as she pours invisible liquid into the plastic tea cups, oblivious to the world that's falling apart around her. She doesn't have much, yet she has everything she needs, and big dreams for everything she wants.

"Will you tell me a story?" she asks.

"A story? Well, aren't you the best writer in class? Shouldn't you be telling me a story?" I say.

"Please?" she begs with her puppy-dog eyes. Damn, I was good.

"Okay," I say, "how about a story about a girl who loses her favorite dream and goes on an adventure to find it?"

"How does someone lose a dream?" she asks skeptically.

"How about you pour me some tea, and I'll tell you."

Her dimples sink deeply into her cheeks as she excitedly pours the tea, and I begin the story.

"Once upon a time, there was a girl who had a dream..."

I met someone.

More than someone.

And we didn't really meet.

We collided...

Instantly piecing together like a puzzle.

Without even trying.

Fuzing.

Now my days and nights are filled with her collisions.

And I hope they never stop.

I pick up another card, a four of spades - not what I needed - my hand grows with cards, flowering and falling. I dig into the stack of cards in front of me, now knowing the root of my problems is my hands being too small, 'till I find the right one. I reach into a bowl of dried fruit, nuts, and seeds. "Hurry up, hoe! God damn," my best friend yells at me from the other side of the table. Taking a sip of water, hardy, I continue, trying to keep my calm.

I wonder why the hardy winter always stays longer than spring

With just a spade I’d dug myself into a grave

A plan has taken root in my mind

Not long 'till its ready to bear fruit

I'm gripping the hoe of freedom so tight my knuckles are white

'Cause I know it'll pave my path to success

My fear only grows by the second

But I've watered my doubts for long enough

I refuse to let them pick my mind

It's time I let the seeds of doubt crumble and fall

And wait for my flowering hope to dig my way out

A hardy handshake, greeted me, as soon as I walked into the living room.

I had spent years try to root around and dig myself out of the massive black hole that had swallowed my existence.

I grow. Only Because I know the taste of silence. Forced to pick my poison, I washed it down with spirited water.

Bourbon and branch, and working my fingers to the bone. Till my labors were finally flowering. And bore fruit.

The top three reasons my dad has a smile plastered on his face at the moment…

Stories of this fruit:

A seed fund.

A gold digging hoe.

And David Spade.

Death is a dark and looming fate,

A specter that we cannot escape.

It waits for us at every turn,

In every breath that we must earn.

It steals our loved ones in the night,

And fills our hearts with endless fright.

We fear it more than we can say,

For it will come for us one day.

We run from it, but cannot hide,

It follows us with silent stride.

It takes us when our time has come,

And leaves behind an empty home.

No matter how we try to fight,

Death will come, and we will take flight.

So let us live each day with care,

And cherish all the love we share.

For when our time on Earth is done,

We'll join the ones we've loved and gone.

We'll rest in peace and finally see,

That death is just a part of eternity

If I were without my problems who would I be?

All these problems play their role in me being me.

Although, not all of my problems seem fair

These problems of mine are my cross to bare

May they be mental, physical or emotionally earned

Within these problems are lessons I have learned

without any and all of problems I wouldn't be me.

So without my problems who would I be?

I've spent time trying to figure you out, to explain why you do what you do. I suppose it's possible that your daddy made you feel less than, or your mama told you that you'd never make it out of Georgia. It almost made me feel better, trying to solve the puzzle you are, because if I did that, then I would know the reason that you treat me like shit is bigger than us both. But then I get to thinking some more, and it strikes me that even if you have what they call capital T trauma these days, where's the line where you say enough is enough? That all the pain and hurt in the world can't justify you raining it down upon me tenfold? I am working so hard to find the humanity in you so that I don't lose it in myself, so that I am not so consumed by rage and sorrow that I become a black hole that sucks the joy out of everything around me. But on the bad days, and today is one of those days, I keep on thinking still, that just because someone is in a position of power doesn't mean they did anything right to get there. It doesn't mean they're smart, or brave, or deserving. In fact, on today's upside down Earth it's probably more likely that you got there by lying, cheating, deceiving - knocking people down as you go and smiling while you do it, working your way up the ladder of a system that was designed for folks like you to use it this way. And if that's the case, that means life really is unfair and no amount of hollering I ever do is going to make one lick of difference. There's nothing I can do to knock that crown off your head because the game is rigged against me and the only thing there is is to let you force me out, convince me that the only option I have is to leave to save myself, and to be okay with it. To be okay with you still sitting upon your throne built on top of the bodies you burned on the way to the cushion that cradles your ass. When all is said and done, what's the point of anything at all? I think.