Life's Question

Tears

Smiles

Diapers

Pacifier resolution

Running across the room

Going with my dad on the night patrol

Seeing the wheat harvest

Life only asks you one question.

Learning letters

Getting on a plane

Learning a new language

Finding the bathroom

Getting bullied

Going to camp

Singing in harmony

Seeing a rattlesnake

Missing home

Life only asks you one question.

Playing with legos

Watching TV

Falling asleep in the backs of cars

Brother

Sister

Clarinet

Birthday presents

Running around the block to vent my anger

Life only asks you one question.

Making my own bow and arrow

Miniature golf

Music practice

Girls

Rap

My best friend’s funeral

Grunge

Girls girls girls

Pressure

Loneliness

Depression

Life only asks you one question.

Moving back

Learning to read in high school

No one laughs at my jokes

More loneliness

Stress

Counseling

No one remembered my birthday

Life only asks you one question.

Rollercoaster ride

Dancing until the sun comes up

Making mistakes

Working with kids

Sleeping in bunks

Uniforms

Semi-automatic rifles

Watching the news

Narrowly missing two bombings

My commanding officer crying on the phone

Life only asks you one question.

Sitting on a jet plane

The smell of India

Waterfalls

Frozen lakes

Meditation

Elephants and huge white cows

Noise

Silence

The taste of true freedom

Life only asks you one question.

My family at the airport

College

Questions

Goals

More questions

Relationships

Sex

Music

Students

Musical Theater

Life only really asks you one question.

Taking chances

Another jet plane

The Golden Gate Bridge

Stocking shelves at a hardware store

Two kindergarteners fighting in the yard

Life only ever asks you one question.

Back to the “village”

Back to school

Teaching

Career

Flashbacks

Running away

Back to the Bridge

Life on a wooden sailboat

EMDR

Sunrise

Seagulls

Whales leaping out of the water

Men screaming at their wives in the middle of the night

Coming back to land

Making ends meet

Taking warm showers

Looking out the window at the rain

Singing with toddlers

Finding a place to live

Taking walks

Naming the trees

Seeing the creek fill with water for the first time in ages

Wondering where it’s all gonna go.

Through

Everything

You

Do, see, and experience,

Life

Ultimately

Asks

You

Only

One

Question:

What do you REALLY want?

Photo by Dominika Gregušová, Pexels.com