Perspective: It's What's for Dinner

"The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning" -Ivey Baker Priest

I feel like that concept has been smacking me in the face over and over the last week or so. Like God is trying to force feed me the idea that any situation is only as big as the person's eyes you are viewing it through. Y'all ever feel that way?

I realize everyone has their own path to travel, and that each of us is going to have our own set of hard knocks and high points...it's just SO easy to get caught up in your own, you know?

Take this tumor thing for instance. Yeah, it's annoying. It's funny to joke/blog about until it's time to face the music and actually be as brave as you've been fronting. So if I'm being completely honest, I'm a decent amount afraid. I've had plenty of surgeries, but with this one I have no idea what to expect. So I've resigned to place the pain I will undoubtedly experience somewhere between getting 4 impacted wisdom teeth removed and having a titanium rod hammered into my tibia. Twice. You like the scale I invented? Clever, I know. I'll let you know how accurate it is later this week.

Is there some place that you reach as an adult where you don't completely undermine your own situation, and yet still have genuinely heartfelt empathy for others? I feel like that's the direction I'm heading but I still have a hard time finding the balance. Yes, I'm having surgery to remove a freak tumor, and it sucks. Frankenstein scar anyone? But I don't have cancer and I'm not staring death in the face. Yes, I have student loans that haunt my dreams, but I have a college degree to show for it and was blessed 10 fold the amount of money I owe by the experience of attending such a phenomenal school. Yeah, it's blistering hot here in Texas at 108 degrees, but at least I have central AC and I'm not sleeping in a tent, in the dessert, fighting a war. I feel like I play this game in my head every time I want to complain about or dwell to long on something. As if, no matter what I'm facing, is ever of any magnitude compared to how things could be.

One of my all time favorite books is "Walk Two Moons" by Sharon Creech. I've probably read it 15 times but I still feel like I gain some incredible insight each time I open the pages. So for today, I'll leave you with one of my most cherished quotes from the book:

"It seems to me that we can’t explain all the truly awful things in the world like war and murder and brain tumors, and we can’t fix these things, so we look at the frightening things that are closer to us and we magnify them until they burst open. Inside is something that we can manage, something that isn’t as awful as it had a first seemed. It is a relief to discover that although there might be axe murderers and kidnappers in the world, most people seem a lot like us: sometimes afraid and sometimes brave, sometimes cruel and sometimes kind."

Sorry for the wanna-be-philosophical post. I guess legally signing your life away on 15 "just in case" forms at the hospital will make you think in circles.

Always,

L

P.S. I promise to return your regularly scheduled laugh-out-loud-at-my-hot-mess-of-a-life postings ASAP. Also, if you read anything on here late tomorrow afternoon that is completely offensive, obviously a bold-faced lie, has sexual and/or racial connotations or just flat out makes absolutely NO sense, don't fret. That's just the pain killers/anesthesia talking...you.are.welcome.