Where to now???

This girl is five-years old. A National Geographic photographer took this of her while she was watching for rainbows. She stayed on the roof of that car for a half hour, just watching, patient in the knowledge that if she just waited long enough, she WOULD see a rainbow. She saw three.

Several years ago, my attitude about what lay down the road was one of being apprehensive, not so much one of excitement. I was especially nervous if I saw a storm in the near future. This little girl is watching a storm, perhaps getting closer and closer, and yet, her first thoughts about it are to watch for a rainbow that WILL appear.

I want to look for the rainbows in life's storms. I want to be like a racehorse at the starting gate about the future. God has amazing things planned for me, not only in the future, but in the present!

Life is an incredible journey. If you keep looking at the adventures you had in the past and longing for them, you will miss the incredible adventures happening RIGHT NOW!!

Whenever it seems like there is a storm in your life, remember that the sun is always shining behind a cloud, and always, always look for the rainbow...

"To My Core"

Something about the zig-zagging course
Of a bolt of electrifying light
In the expanse of the night
Astounds my soul.

Something about the reverberating clap
Of ominous, Zeus-like hands,
Thundering anger in response,
Roots me in rapt wonder
To the mere inches of ground
My humble feet claim.

Something about the proud
Roar of a conquering lion
Drives such a feeling of insignificance
Into my heart
That I feel ashamed to watch
His proud prowl
Across the sandy, rolling grass of the dark continent.

Something about the heart-wrenching wails
Of the great blue fishes,
Buried in the watery expanse,
Crying for another
To soften its solitary existence,
Makes me listen as I have never listened before.

Something about the way
You speak to me
As you try to
Share your deep, inexpressible love
Shakes me to my core.

Just a Tad Toasty.....

We broke a 36-year old record today, up here in Oregon (the land of "eternal rain," (voice dripping with sarcasm.)) We got to the high of 95 degrees, I believe, which is, perhaps, not all that warm for you out-of-staters, like Californians or Australians, but it is HOT for us. It is now 5:15 and still paralyzingly warm. I made the foolish attempt of going horseback riding during my noon lunch break from work, and after two minutes in the sun, forsook the idea in order to quick finish my work and go home (with a stop for ice cream on the way home, of course.)

Now I get to go play volleyball in a hot gym for three hours. Oh, goody!! No, really, I love volleyball. But who I really feel for is my little brother who gets to play a baseball game.

However, in the face of adversity, the very stoutest in us is brought forth to show the world the warriors and the wimps. In the face of a sun that causes even the coldest ice cream cone to drip from its lofty heights to my lap in seconds, I will stand fast.

(I suppose this isn't a high quality post, is it? I wrote an essay on embryonic stem cell research a couple weeks ago and perhaps I should post that. Ohhhh, the discussions that would arise!!)

Toodles, pip-pip and all the British stuff!

No words...

I apologize for my "long" breaks in between posts. I am more and more of the mindset that I should post when I have something valuable to say. And I don't.

ALTHOUGH, it is worth noting I am doing FANTASTIC (that is due to God's grace in my life because there are quite a few factors that could make my life quite miserable and fortunately, aren't.)

That is all.

Quote of the Month

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

-Marianne Williamson

I also like the quote that says, "No man made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little." However, I am not quite sure who said that, any help?

Tips for a Visit to Southern Cali

This picture was taken right after I finished surfing on a 9'8" longboard, last summer in California, on La Joya Beach. I loved surfing so much. I wish I could do it more often.

Some interesting things to note for y'all who haven't surfed and/or haven't been to South Cali:

1. DON'T mess with a surfing guy's territory. I have surfed three times. The first time, I was about 13-14, and I saw an awesome wave coming in off on the right. I called out "coming in on the right!" to tell all the guys about that wave. Little did I know that when you get to a wave first (which I had) you have dibs on it. Other surfers can ride it, but NOT if you call out the direction you are going to ride a wave. I, unfortunately, rode the wave straight down. It was one of the best waves to come in that day and they were all TICKED. Talk about not letting something drop! They were still all mad and yelling at me when I left.
2. Appearance is everything to the richies. I even saw a PIZZA DELIVERY guy driving a brand-new Audi. Makes me wonder why he has the delivery job if he can afford an Audi...oh wait, it's cause he CAN'T afford the Audi! He needs the job to make payments. This is so over-the-top, it is sickeningly wrong. There are millions of people starving in this world, yet in the world of Southern California, spend if you've got it, borrow if you don't, and there is no limit to how in debt you should get in order to fit in.
3. Expect to cause an accident on the freeway if you wave, smile, or make any attempt at friendliness. I'm serious. 75% of Southern Californians are mean, snobby people. (At least, in the rich parts of it. I'm talking Orange County, etc.) You would think that when they all have cosmetic surgery, they get the doctor to take out their basic decency too. My dad rented a convertible while we down there and my little brother and I made a game to see how many people we could get to smile and wave at us. During our entire week down there, we got a grand, smashing total of 10 waves back.
4. Do not, I repeat, do NOT make eye contact with the Hispanic men. I have NOTHING against them (except when they are illegal immigrants.) But they have a completely different culture and if you look their way, they think you are "in love" with them. Hahaha! I am not kidding. It is actually sort of scary...
5. The Buffalo Exchange is a worse rip-off there than in Portland. For y'all who don't know what a Buffalo Exchange is, it is like a high-end thrift store. It is bad enough in Portland, but in Pacific Beach/San Diego, everything costs about $10-15 more than it is worth. I AM SERIOUS. Don't even waste your time. Besides, all the clothes, for the girls at least, are a size 0, thanks to Hollywood's powerful influence, "the skinnier the better."

"Rising At Dawn"

(This is the sequel to "Sad Fairy." PLEASE notice that this is a poem with a happy ending. The fairy is sort of like a phoenix rising from the ashes.)

----------------------------------------------------------

Night descends softly
Like a dark blanket
Dotted with flecks of snow.
Standing in the gathering dew,
The fairy waits.

Somewhere the sun is shining
Just not in this slice of earth.
The land of the fairy is dark
Like the garb of coffin-bearers
And the tear-stained black lace
On a widow's face.

Standing in the gathering dew,
The fairy waits.
Sleep does not steal
The thoughts from her head
And the visions from her blue eyes.

Sinking gently to the wet earth,
The fairy tires of her endless guard
Over the past,
Over what is no more,
Over what has been given up
To gain what cannot be lost.

Glancing down to the shadow-clad ground,
The fairy spies the cloud of a dandelion
Spreading its seeds.
Remembering the lore of the wish-granting power
Of this thing of ethereal beauty,
She plucks it gently
And brings her lips close
As if to plant a salty kiss on this once-sunny flower,
But instead, she blows upon it,
Scattering its offspring to the four corners of the earth,
Each parachuting seed bearing a fairy's wish for sunshine
And a gentle place for happiness to grow.

The night is drawing to an end,
The fairy gazes up and
The last star she can find
Is the most northern in the sky.
Wish upon the star she does
And then bows her head,
Says a prayer
For the one that she lost.

But the sun is shining through the dark,
Warming the fairy's face,
Melting the cold that had frozen
Her heart,
Helping it feel love again.

The fairy still walks alone
Under the pink causeway
Of the merciful dawn sky,
But she mourns no more
For what was given up
To gain what cannot be lost.

The fairy rises from her bed of tears
To face the rising of the dawn....

Quotes I Love

"Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow."
-Aesop

"Love flies, runs, and rejoices; it is free and nothing can hold it back. "
-Thomas a Kempis

"Who has a harder fight than he who is striving to overcome himself. "
-Thomas a Kempis

"Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be."
-Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ

"We are not doubting that God will do best for us, we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."
-C.S. Lewis

"The time is now, the place is here. Stay in the present. You can do nothing to change the past, and the future will never come exactly as you plan or hope for."
-Dan Millman

"Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."
-1 Corinthians 10: 12

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear."
-1 John 4:18

"In critical moments even the very powerful have need of the weakest."
-Aesop

"Sad Fairy"

Bright pink flowers carpet
The golden trees.
Two stems plucked from their
High havens,
Adorn the head of a sad fairy.

Two stems dropped
To the ground.
One on the dark causeway under the trees
One placed in a gutter,
To make an ugly thing beautiful.

Days slip by on tender tiptoes,
Alone, the sad fairy walked the route
Of lakeside splendor,
Stopping to gather
Two dead pink stems into her ashen hands,
Placed carefully between two snowy pages,
To keep the past touchable
Forever.

Dead pink flowers carpet
Brown trees,
Dead pink flowers fall
To this earth's floor,
Reminders of the sad fairy walking
Alone....

Today is a Passionate Day.

Some days, I am like a zombie. I walk around, sort of spaced out. Some days, I am at extremes. I feel everything very keenly and if I am sad, I am really sad. If I am happy, I am really happy. And so on and so forth.

Today, I feel strongly about the cruelty of so many women today. (I have been thinking alot about abortion.) How can women be so cruel as to kill their unborn children? To take away their only chance to be able to feel the hot sun on their faces, to hear a nightingale sing, or watch a monarch butterfly flit across their path, to feel the spray of a magnificent waterfall as it cascades over the treacherous rocks? How can women explain away killing someone, so they can be comfortable? It doesn't make sense. Today, I mourn the loss of a third of my generation....

If this world were perfect....

If this world were perfect….

If this world were perfect, there would be no one-sided romances; everyone who fell in love, would have their love returned ten-fold.

If this world were perfect, your first, true love would be your last, because there would be no broken hearts, and the only end to your story would be “and they lived happily ever after.”

If this world were perfect, there would be no lovers’ quarrels, no divorces, no fatherless children; every marriage would last forever, a lifelong honeymoon. (There would be no marriage counselors, because every marriage would be magical.)

If this world were perfect, there wouldn’t be any days in life when the sun doesn’t come out, and you feel alone, alone and friendless.

If this world were perfect, we would regret it.

Every single thing that feels hard to you today, is making you a better person. It is preparing you for that one person that you will spend your life with, laugh with, share your triumphs with, and cry with. Every single thing that you don’t want to face was put there to help you to grow.

God won’t make a mountain we can’t climb. He won’t ask us to carry a load we can’t lift. So the next time you find yourself wishing for a perfect world, remember that though the thorns sting for but a little while, the rose is worth the struggle.

“When it gets dark enough, you can see the stars.”- Charles A. Beard

Is a title required to make a post complete?

Today was fantastic, as my friend says, legendarily divine. I met some of my family at my uncle's retired, 80-foot long fishing boat, and we took it for a sail down the Columbia (or was it up?) to its new home in Camas, Washington. It was about a three-hour cruise and the weather, although not sunny, was not too cold or windy and was not wet so it was nice. I didn't have to look at a school book all day and I ate many cookies. However, I did not eat enough cookies to feel guilty now, just enough to feel like I indulged to the point of satisfaction. It is a terrible thing to stint yourself windmill-shaped cookies when you want them. Everything in moderation, I say.

I have re-read my previous post, and I have learned things about the female mind that I sort of "knew" but not terribly well. I mean, I too am confused about all the ins and outs. Why don't we come with user's manuals? That would make things so much simpler...

On a plus, I have been very, very poetic for the past week. I have written at least one good and three "okay" poems every day. However, the good poems are always very, shall we say, revealing about the state of my heart and I am not sure I am at the point where I can share it. Perhaps if you were to ask really nicely, I would let you read one of them, but don't get your hopes up. Remember my christening post, "Shall I bare myself to the ridicule of the masses? To the hysteria of a secret love? Shall I open my heart, to have it broken while I gaze on in grief?" (Hmm, I really like those lines, perhaps I should use my own creativity in another form, since that post has long since been discarded into the never-opened archives...)

Tomorrow I return to the life of your average college student, you know the type, the ones who don't work on airplanes and take entire days to ride around on huge boats. Friday, I have a mid-term in math. My teacher says he expects it to be an eye-opener and we will all fail or at least come close. (Isn't he, "Mr. Optimistic??") Perhaps I should study...

So for now, adieu, my faithful readers!

A Promised Expose of the Female Mind: As Understood By Author/ Operator

I am a female, but that does not give me any deep insights to the female mind since I am still understanding why it has to work the way it does.

Female brains tend to overfocus. I suppose you could say the average girl (I am using myself as an example, remember) will overprocess, and overthink everything that is said to her if it is of any value, emotionally especially. If a guy told me he thought I was pretty, I would probably spend a good deal of time wondering what his real motive, etc., was, even though he probably meant just, and only, what he said.

It has been said to me that guys are very straightforward. Females are much less so. We will spend hours, possibly even days, thinking about the right way to say something if it is something that could have a huge impact, such as admitting deeper feelings than friendship, or breaking off a relationship. Even worse, after we say it, we will re-analyze it and then beat ourselves up if we discover a way we could have said it better. This is why, unless you are dealing with a terribly heartless female, you will receive an email saying something important, and then another email clarifying or specifying what she said in the first, perhaps even apologizing. We always want to find the best, least hurtful way to say everything, and not that many things are simply "off the cuff."

Before I continue, I want to specify that these are general guidelines, and perhaps only to a specific type of female. There are exceptions to every rule and there are females that are very selfish, cruel, and mean. Do not, I repeat, do not give up heart if you come across one of these females; they do not represent the majority of women. At least, I should hope not.

Now let's talk about day to day life. A female will wake up in the morning and her first practical thoughts are just that, practical. She is going to think about what she will eat for breakfast, perhaps even dinner and what she is going to wear and what things she will occupy herself with throughout the day. Sometimes she gets really unpractical and starts planning about what to do if she sees "him" or what she'll say to so-and-so, etc.

Now comes the topic of clothing and appearance. Females tend to overfocus on clothes. We are sort of protective of our styles. If we don't ask for criticism, don't offer it, and better yet, don't give criticism even when asked, unless the female in question is a relative, and even then you are treading on slippery ground. However, we do desperately need and appreciate compliments. Because whether it looks like it or not, the average female makes a sincere effort to make herself look good for the male population and it is always nice when they show their appreciation.

Another thing, I would stay away from the dreaded "weight" topic entirely. Sometimes, there are exceptions though, and you may ALWAYS tell a female that she looks great, very slim, or something general like that. But be careful not to imply that she needed to lose weight. I think that a really nice guy (J.L.) I know handled a tough situtation that I, unthinkingly, placed him in. We were lifeguarding together a couple months ago and for some bizarre reason I asked him if it looked like I had lost weight because I had been trying. He said, "I didn't notice because I always thought you looked wonderful." Or something like that. THAT is a perfect example of male-manuevering out of a sticky situation. Fortunately, not all females are as blunder-headed as me and won't put you there but if you ever find yourself in such a spot, PANIC. No, I am just kidding....

I feel so superficial writing about my sex in such a way, but I think while I have all these traits, I am not your average "pretty girl." I am rough and tumble, sort of, so it is a little easier for guys to be around me, or so I have been told.

This is my first forray into the recesses of the female mind which I do not pretend to fully understand myself. I feel so sorry for you men, and promise to be as undifficult as possible in every situation in the future, now that I have written and therefore, better seen what you have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

A Gentle Laughter Ringing in My Ears

That title has nothing to do with this post. I just liked the way it sounds when I say it out loud. Am I being ridiculous and silly? Probably so. But I am tired, so give me a teeny-tiny break. Why am I tired, since I continue to procrastinate till the last minute with all my homework??

Yesterday, we went biking on the Springwater Trail. This is a nice, flat, concrete trail that is miles and miles long. We, my family and my best friend, biked 12 miles. No, that wouldn't make me tired. What made me tired is my best friend used my bike and I had to scooter. You remember the type, those scooters that were immensely popular 2 or 3 years ago? Anyway, I scootered for 11 MILES. Hahaha! I feel so powerful and yet, so incredibly sore.

But that is just me babbling again. Once again, I don't feel brilliant. Isn't that the way things go? I come up with a brilliant post, a silly post, a brilliant post, a silly post, and so on and so forth. Today I go to work. As my friend Scribbley says, people are putting their lives into my hands today. Now isn't that a scary thought!!!?? Anyone who knows me from the pool would be a little concerned, but really, I am quite capable!! I need to go take a shower, perhaps that and this steaming cup of coffee will wake me up....

Stay tuned for an expose of the female's brain processes. At least as much as I can understand of the female's brain processes, which isn't much! (How DO you guys handle us????)

Something to think about...

Face it- I am a hopeless romantic. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that though, but sometimes it is annoying, to myself. I just finished that Indian movie, “Dil to Pagal Hai.” It made me so, I don’t know, excited and romantic as well as expectant. I can’t wait to be in love. I can’t wait till I feel this way:

“When he looks at me, I feel beautiful. When he laughs, I feel like dancing. When he loves me, my eyes fill with tears. He has made me realize that he is made for me, and I for him.”

But for now, until God sees fit to give me that, I will work on my relationship with the Lord and with my family. I need to feel that way about the Lord and develop a more personal relationship with Him. I want to, too. He has done so much for me; He is deserving of everything I could give Him, He is deserving of all of me.

All my life, people have been telling me they loved me. My parents told me. My family told me. Friends told me. Guys told me. But, it doesn’t matter what they tell me. What matters is what they do. My dad left us, my mom and all six of us kids. My big brother left us too. My friends have rejected me for the truth that God has given me to give them. Most of those guys wanted me to hold back a crucial, if not the most crucial, part of me, my faith in God, in order to have a relationship with them. If these people truly loved me, their actions would have been in my best interest. But they weren’t. All their actions were in their best interest. They did what felt good.

Other people have told me they loved me, and truly shown it. My mom gave up her marriage so that we children would be safe from an immature father, who was emotionally abusive. My best friend Becki will tell me the truth, that I need to hear, instead of holding back out of fear of my getting offended. Most of all, God has told me He loves me and has proven it in every action He has ever taken towards me, every single one.

So love is not what you say, it is what you do. I want to prove my love for God with my actions. I want to prove my love for my family with the way I relate to them. And when I meet the man I am going to marry, I want to prove my love to him through what I do, not only through what I say.

It is about time.

I had a whole page written about relationships. It was actually witty and made sense but I erased the whole thing. I don't know who is reading this blog and I guess I don't want to take the chance on revealing some, um, information.

So I will complete this post with meaningless drivel. If you must, you can try to read in between the lines and get something magnificent out of it, but it would be a waste of your time. I am hopelessly unclever, unfunny, and un"magnificent" this morning. Sorry to disappoint you.

I got new glasses yesterday, glasses that actually make me want to forgoe contacts. The first time my mom saw them she said, "They make you look SMART." As opposed to what, Mom?? Other than the new and improved "smart" factor, my new glasses are nearly invisible, which is their biggest attraction to me. I like nearly invisible.

Speaking of invisible, do you ever wish you could turn invisible for a while and listen in on conversations you were never supposed to hear? I do, sometimes. I also wish I could fly, no, not in an airplane, just fly, like a falcon, or a golden eagle.

I wish I could blame my current state of mind of sleep depravation again but I can't. I went to bed early last night and slept in this morning. I think I am just in one of my "wierd" moods. There are two Russians sitting at the table across from mine. They are babbling on in Russian and staring off into space. The guy looks like he'd rather be anywhere but sitting next to the girl who won't stop talking and looks like a skinny bumblebee because her shirt is BRIGHT yellow. Are you shocked? That wasn't very nice of me. Allow me to try again. She looks like a sunflower.

I need to go get food, or coffee or something. I just need to get out of the library at the college and off the campus. Maybe I should fly somewhere, like New York or England. Okay, now I am scaring myself with my wierdness....

I wrote this last night.

I am so tired but there is no way I can get to sleep. My mind is running circles around in my head. My sister has a cold and she is snoring SO loudly. It is dark in my room, but if I turn the light over my bed on, she will wake up and she will NOT be happy, forgetting the fact that she has kept me up for the past half hour! So I choose not to incur her wrath, and so I write this by the light of a dimly shining flashlight, on the old-fashioned method of paper and pen.

I just watched half of a movie from India called, "Dil to Pagal Hai." It means "The Heart is Mad." The whole motto of this movie is "Someone, somewhere was made for you." It made me feel SO romantic, as actually, all Indian movies do.

I do not believe in coincidences. I think that everything, I repeat, everything happens for a reason. Only God can know the end result of everything that happens and we humans are simply along for the ride. A lot of things have happened in my 18 years that are too "random" and have had such varied, wonderful results to let me believe they simply...happened. Like the time that I ran across the street without looking for cars (when I was 6?) and hit a truck coming down the hill. I mean hit, because I smacked the rear of the truck with my wrist and the car NEVER crossed in front of me. Oh wait, that is a miracle. I can't think straight right now because I am so tired and my sister continues to snore, ask me sometime about all these random things and I will tell you...

But anyway, I believe that someday, I will meet the most perfect match for me that could ever be. Just like in that movie, the guy and the girl spend their whole lives on opposite sides of the same city annd never meet. Then one day, they cross pathes and their lives are COMPLETELY changed, forever.

I am not making any sense, am I? Oh well, practice your reading comprehension skills. I MUST go to bed, my day starts an hour earlier tomorrow....Goodnight.

Contemplating adulthood on my 18th birthday.

This picture is, hmm, five months old??

Sometimes, I am SUCH a show-off... :)

But only sometimes. Have I mentioned that I love to snowboard? No, I am not "one of THOSE girls." You know the type, the ones that buy the designer outfit and stand around looking pretty and making cow eyes at the guys. I just like strapping a narrow, flimsy board to my feet and careening down a mountainside at 20-something (or is it more?) miles per hour. Hahaha! To answer your question, yes, I am doing better today.

Anyway, no, I didn't go snowboarding today. I was working on my uncle's retired, 80-foot long fishing vessel today. He is turning it into a research vessel, slowly but surely. He has grandiose schemes of being able to put his little float plane (a Piper Cub) on the back of the boat and sailing around the world, or at least the Pacific Northwest. :) So how was I showing off, you may ask?

Well, our specific reason for being on the boat today was unloading huge barrels, full of bilge water (oily water), that weighed 400-500 lbs. EACH! We had to get them on the little barrel frame thingy, then use a pulley system (that was SO not automated) to get them up over the side of the boat and down onto a little cart. Then, I steered the cart, with a few people pushing it, to the truck. (I am really bad at distance so I have no idea how far away it was, but it took about 5 minutes because we were on a dock the whole time.) Just before the truck, we had to take this massive barrel up a long steep ramp and yes, I was still pulling, looking tough, showing off my "gym" muscles. Hahaha! Okay, enough, you don't care about the whole barrel thing or how "buff" I am.

Here is something interesting. I am REALLY sunburnt. I don't know what the weather is like somewhere else in the country, say in Tennessee, but it was HOT in Oregon today.

On a more interesting topic....um, I can't think of anything. Maybe now isn't the best time to blog because I have nothing to say. On the bright side, at least I am not feeling mournful enough to write another sad, depressing poem. I have been writing a LOT of those lately and a few of them are on this site. So, you know who you are, leave me a comment on those poems PUHLEEZE because I wrote them for/about ( etc.) you.

As I look over this post, it seems so immature. Not at all on the same level as my usual posts. Oh well, in everyone's life there are times to just be happy and sort of silly. There are also times for tears, I have had a lot of those lately so it is about time for a happy day...

It gets a little better in the end.

I never look forward to night anymore. It used to be my favorite time of day because the world seemed asleep, and so peaceful. My family is all in bed, except my sister, who works a graveyard security shift.

But now, I hate the night, just like I hate mornings. The best time of day is lunchtime and early afternoon. The only good thing about the night is that the day is almost over. But still! Night is when you have to lie in bed and just think. I am not one of those people who have found magical switches in their brain and can just stop thinking as soon as the lights go out. Well, I used to be, but not since I started to take on adult responsibilities and an adult mindset.

The worst thing about night is that I become irrational. Things that I can face under the shining light of the sun become overwhelming and despairingly depressive when I turn out the rice paper lantern over my bed, and lay my head on my soft pillow. It has gotten to the point where I am not getting to sleep till one or two in the morning and then have to wake up before 7 am.

HOLD ON A SECOND. I am feeling guilty now for having complained so much. Compared to the rest of the world, I have very few problems. People are dying right this very minute. A child just found out that their mother will never come back from the store because a drunk driver hit and killed her, and that child will have to live without a mother's love and comforting presence. A woman, in the depths of despair, aborted her child, and for the next decades of her life, will regret her decision. Someone, somewhere, found out that, "No, you will never regain use of your legs." Someone was just told they have no more than a couple weeks to live. Someone just found out that the love of their life was killed and will never come back to them, so they could kiss them passionatiely, and hold them and quietly absorb and share their love.

And me, all I have to worry about is a few bills that I can't really afford to pay, a relationship that I wish hadn't had to end, and mild sleep depravation. Yes, I have it good compared to the rest of the world...