A friend has been posting a lot lately on perspective.  I’ve been listening and at the same time thinking “yeah, but you don’t know what I’m going through!”.

I told someone this week how much I’m looking forward to January.  I just want this year to be OVER.  In March when people were asking me how old I was going to be I kept saying 34.  Problem was I turned 33 this year.  For some reason I wanted to skip 33.  Well, this year has been H-E-L-L.

Seriously.  I was talking to someone and she agreed…the past 12 months have been just horrible.  Have I survived it?  Yes.  Have I learned from it?  Yes.  Do I want to go through it again?  NO!  It’s 54 days, 2 hours, 39 minutes and 37 seconds until 2008.  Am I looking forward to it?  YES.  I’m convinced 2008 will be better.

I’m about to just give up.  I actually threatened to find a cave and stay there until January 1st.  Seriously, there are times when I think it would be safer for me to just go into hiding.

Then perspective hit.  And it hit H-A-R-D.  I was pondering that cave in the middle of nowhere when I got an e-mail from a very good friend who’s daughter was supposed to be having much needed surgery in January.  Instead they found that things are worse than they thought and she only has 1-3 years to live.

Wow.

Here I am overwhelmed because my life sucks right now.  Here I am complaining because I want this year to be over because it’s been horrible.  Here I am freaking out because I got in a small accident this morning and have to pay to have my parents car fixed.

Perspective.

My life will improve (at least I keep reminding myself of that even when I doubt it).  Yeah this year has been bad but I have a home, my dad made it through surgery and is doing great, I have a successful business, heck I HAVE NEXT YEAR!

I’m not asking you to feel sorry for my friend.  She’s not asking anyone to feel sorry for her.  Her daughter is 4 1/2.  She’s had 4 1/2 WONDERFUL years with her that she wouldn’t trade for ANYTHING.  She’s not crawling into a cave to hide for the next three years.  She’s having ice cream for breakfast.  She’s going frog hunting at dawn and she’s going to go to the zoo 7000 times.

You know what?  Perspective.