Nice To Know You, Friend

I have a new friend, and her life is the total pits.

I met her on a rainy Wednesday evening. It was drizzling, stopping anything soon, and I felt wistful, knowing that to run afterwards would be a very therapeutic feeling. But my knees won't appreciate the therapy.

My new friend is blind in one eye, from an accident when she was 3. Her husband left her for another woman, and she is left fending for her kids and coping with the cost of life in the form of mortgage, car loans, bills, and everything else in between. My new friend lost her father recently, and she told me that she has lost the only man who loved her truly and never let her down even for a second. Also, she has a weak pair of legs, shuffles everywhere when she has to walk, which is often because her car breaks down almost all the time ("This car reminds me of my ex- husband," she told me wryly, "because it always gives me shit.") Her youngest is suffering from Lupus, and seems unable to motivate himself to enjoy school. She was a swimmer all throughout high school and university even with one eyesight. She was fast, a waterbaby. But since life bogs her down so much all her glory days is a gift she reopens once in a while at 3am in the morning when she couldn't sleep.

That is my new friend, and her name is Perspective. I come to her if I want a dose of Get Me Out of This Funk. Being young, and unharnessed, and sometimes impatient, I tend to forget that it's not the end of the world if I couldn't run. I go back and forth from being Miss Spiritual, Life is Great to WHY AM I STILL NOT RECOVERING?

So here it is, Perspective. Do I want her life? Or mine, which is - when you look at it again - not so bad at all. In fact, I am going to for a nice long walk after this, and enjoy the view. I could still enjoy blue skies and dogs marking trees and insane traffic jams, whereas Perspective can't. Not completely.

So, no brainer here.