How many turning points are given in a life?

Aug 3, 2008
How many turning points are given in a life?
Current mood:sympathetic

I feel like I'm always trying to better myself....yet never feel that the goal is accomplished. Sometimes I think, I've hit so many turning points in my life....that it just makes a square and I start over.

Sometimes I learn a lesson....and end up learning it all over again a few months/years later. Does that make sense?

I have so many blogs to write - I'm halfway through another that I started last week but it's saved off somewhere.

But let me tell you how this blog came to be. My family was visiting this weekend. It was nice. I cooked us dinner on Friday night. Then....Saturday night we went to dinner, Sunday morning we went to breakfast, and tonight we went to dinner. I was so stuffed I was groaning the entire way home. Going out to eat....3 meals in a row. I felt physically ill. So after everyone was gone, I threw on some stretchy pants :) I was sitting on the couch thinking about how incredibly full I was and what a sloth I looked like. I was watching TLC (one of my favorite channels). First I was watching a show on primidial dwarfism....and it made me realize how early feelings can get hurt. There was this 4 year old boy, and this other boy about his age kneeled down and said "I'm bigger than you" and ran off. Now the bigger boy I'm sure didn't realize that he was the same age, or that there was something wrong, or that he was going to upset him, he's just a little boy himself. The mom went to the little boy (with dwarfism) and told him that it was okay and the little guy pointed at his heart, and then wiped tears from his eyes. It broke my heart! I'm sure he was young enough that he didn't fully understand that he was different....but old enough to know when someone points it out. Just seeing that innocence in that child...triggered something - I don't know what - it's like it opened my mind up to something.

THEN - Then I saw someting I never had seen before. Still watching TLC, it was called "A New Face for Marley". This poor 13 year old girl in Haiti, had a 16 pound growth on her face (fibrous dysplasia). Her face literally looked like a hippo. Her eyes had separated. She had no nose, other that 2 flat nostrils, and she had no mouth, it was all bone mass. Her face was too heavy for her head. She had to carry it in her hands. Their neighbors shunned her and said it was a curse; people called her a monster. The girl had even tried to kill herself. 13. Just a 13 yr old girl, with such a horrible unexplainable deformity, causing her immense pain, almost causing her to go blind, and she could barely breathe. NONE of this by fault of her own.

So where am I going with this? Back to a lesson I already learned. When Jon died...I was so angry with so many people. I was angry at smokers. I was angry and obese people. I was angry at everyone who didn't take care of themselves....and were still allowed to live. All the while, Jon (granted he smoked), seemed in perfect shape and died suddenly. I guess maybe it's not the exact same lesson. That one was more "take care of your life, it's precious". But this one....is really more of "Why do we do this to ourselves?" Here was this poor 13 yr old girl, made a spectacle of by nothing of her own doing. And here we have people who gorge and gorge on food, stick needles in their veins, inhale smoke ON PURPOSE, etc.....and bitch about being sick, tired, fat, lazy, etc... And they do it to themselves. I - I do it to myself. I play some sports - I keep active. But I don't eat healthy - I quit smoking for a long time....then it slowly came back, now it's not so often but it still shouldn't happen at all. Sometimes I think that we [society] is so spoiled....and we take for granted all the choices we have. We just take the easy route, not thinking that for some people...there is no easy route.

Anyway, the story was heartwarming. The girl came to the states and though she still has many surgeries to go...she's a happy girl again. From a girl who had to physically hold her face to keep alive, couldn't eat and constantly had tears falling, to having a couple surgeries but still needing a LOT of reconstructive surgeries.....still looking different....and dancing. Dancing and smiling. And there I was crying for this girl, while sitting on the couch thinking about how full I was....and how I'm going to start running again tomorrow. And you know. I've ran before. I've lost weight, I've gained weight. But....you know - even if I run myself right back into another square and back to the beginning, I think it's better than giving up on goals all together. My point is....I'm never going to be perfect. Not trying to be. No one is. But seeing stories like this just make me feel so guilty for taking life for granted - more than just health reasons, the way we spend, the luxuries in which we bask, not always thinking about people who never will experience these things. And you know, that's not to say that we don't deserve it, but we [I] just need to open our [my] eyes a little wider sometimes.