The well-proclaimed show, Suits’ best closer, Harvey Specter once said, “Poker is not about playing the cards, but the people.” This made me think, well isn’t that basically what life is. As much as it has to do with our contributions to the world, it has more to do with the impression that we make and others remember. The debate of which is more evergreen is easy to resolve, as we have witnessed the accomplishments of Madame Curie and Albert Einstein and many other great women and men that have lived before us. Their legacies will be taught to endless generations to come, yet the doubt remains…is that really what they wanted. I can’t speak for them, nor any other greatly accomplishing donors of knowledge of our society, yet I can speak for myself, and say I would disagree. Machiavelli could write a thousand more books about the brutality of the human heart, and yet isn’t compassion each of our greatest instincts. Doesn’t this call into question how each of us spend our one life on this earth; our one chance to really seize each day, without thinking one day when I die, but instead thinking today since I’m alive. In this thought, there is an undoubtable selfishness present, but the price of such a sin may only be that one day we may fall into the arms of our fatal ends: doesn’t everyone, so is it even a consequence. Well, all the rhetorical questions can be picked apart by each of us like vultures picking at a dead body, with both scenarios never reaching an end, or we could agree to disagree from the beginning and make what we want of it ourselves. To me, this question is answered simply: our legacy is more valuable existing with those who took a piece of us, and whom we have a piece of as well. Those we have shared moments that cannot be recreated, moments that they will take with them to their grave. And yes, this legacy is not eternal it is tied to the mortal lives of those who have grown with us, but doesn’t it add to the rarity and thus the value of the memories themselves. We cherish our world war veterans, for there are so few that have experienced such extremes of both tragedy and victory. So, why do the rules change now?

Sometimes it’s the people we trust that betray us the most. They’re the ones we don’t label, the ones we believe will stay because they have passed every hurdle you threw at them. You walk around, telling everyone they are one of your closest friends, someone you trust to be your safe haven when you’re away from home. Yet, it doesn’t matter how many people you tell because you never told the person how much they mean or how vital they are. They hold your hand and walk you through each obstacle you are faced with. You want to believe it’s your fault. You want to be the better person and take all of the blame, but you can’t. Anyway you look at it, you can only blame them. Because you hold people up to the standards of betterment that you hold yourself up to. The standards that even you fall short of, yet you expect better from them, why? Why should you expect anyone to be as loyal as you are? Why should you expect someone else to be your locked box just because you serve as their’s. Even if it means not telling your closest friends, you keep their secrets, for what? Blunt betrayal. The time poured into testing whether they would be a ‘good’ friend or not, the time spent on being a ‘good’ friend to them, the times you thought were ‘good’ all seem to have just been stolen from you. Moments like this seem to compromise the meaning of ‘good’ and the vagueness of the word finally hits you. You knew what you were getting yourself into. You knew you wouldn’t be any different. You knew that you were always an expendable pawn in their masterminded plan for their checkmated victory prize to be one of your closest friends. Still, you smile, and wave, and convince yourself that you’re just overthinking the facts in front of you; instead, you turn a blind eye to instinct. Because you want to believe that you deserve better, you want to believe that people can be trusted. All you want is a friend that you can trust without thinking twice, nothing more. And, against every bone in your body that tells you not to, you say, “Hi.” and the continuum of conversing begins. And, it is this very conversing that justifies your choice because they smile and try just as hard as you, if not harder. Still, your mind is so distracted by all of the kindness that you crave, forcing you to overlook the true purpose of this very conversing; the fact is this is really just a tool for them to clear their conscience from the previous night when they were bitching about you to your best friend: their victory prize, remember.

Dr. Bailey, from Grey’s Anatomy, she is amazing. I mean truly incredible and she is referred to as the NAZI throughout. She is shown to be stronger because she can understand and empathize with the patients and co-workers, I try to be hardcore and all and I am definitely not as tough as her, but even then there are people who get through all of the bitch treatment and all of the insults and rudeness and all of it. There are others they never have to face the wrath of it all, cuz for some stupid childish reason we let them in, no walls, no barriers, no tests. Instead, they get a free ride straight on the angel train the one where they get all of the benefits at my cost, but it doesn’t hurt a bit. I don’t know how life works itself out and this is one of the many mysteries of the big question of it all; I guess I hadn’t thought about it much, not until this episode at least. Bailey, she sees her high school crush-Marcus King-that she tutored and did everything for and she follows suit even after all of her degrees. She slaves for him all day, when her interns could be doing the grunt work-like I said before-angel train. Even after being married and having a successful career, her teenage emotions were able to catch up to her within seconds of his arrival because he was one of the many things she never won as a child. It’s like Hassan Minaj said, “There are times when you see people from your past and you return to the age at which you left them,” I guess the whole package returns.

Compartmentalizing tasks, roles, emotions; it’s what we all do to make sure that life moves forward and that the carousel never stops turning. Yet, we are only saving these misplaced emotions, procrastinating having to feel like we should. Having to succumb to what seems like endless tears or an eternal fiery rage. Without anyone to blame, but fate itself. Without justification for deprivation, we tie ourselves up mentally and emotionally. So, we won’t have to physically fall to our knees and weep not knowing when our body will dehydrate itself to the point where our depression can no longer come out in the form of tears. And, all we feel is a sorrow filled emptiness, one that forces us to rethink our own purpose in life, our motivation to wake up the next morning and continue doing so every morning thereafter. We strive to redefine our sole reason to fight through the many obstacles of life, even if we are ever diagnosed with our rarely defeated enemy: cancer. Or worse, if it’s all taken from us due to a one-minute decision of whether to turn left or right as we cross the road. They call it the butterfly effect, but never would anyone assume that such a fragile insect could be the cause of a fully grown 6 ft. man lying on his deathbed. Never, would he himself expect to need the care of world-class surgeons. Much less, would he expect that even with all of their successful efforts, those world-class surgeons would still deliver unfortunate news to his family due to circumstantial medical unpredictabilities.

For all those involved, time seems to travel differently in this bubble of overwhelming sadness. The proceeding seconds drag long enough to sustain as minutes, and the minutes become hours, and the hours seem to crawl by slower than days. This cycle of stagnancy carries on until we find it again. That moment that makes us want to hold onto life, that makes us want to fight every battle we can to stay alive. Because in that moment we make peace with the fact that we have found our passed loved ones smiling back at us in the form of our son, niece, or another or have found happiness in what used to be their joys, or have found a way to love parts of ourselves that have adapted to mold to the person that we just can’t let go until our very last breath. Somehow, or someway the family must move on because the carousel will never stop turning. And, again the miracle of life takes its course as we selfishly continue to hold onto that one person, until we no longer hear the chiming sound as our carousel comes to a stop.