Perspective

My July 4th was wonderful! I got the day off work and spent most of it in a Park reading. I finished Gulliver's travels and read the whole of nineteen eighty four, which I really enjoyed! A review of the two books will happen at some point!

At night there was an amazing fireworks display, which I took lots of photos of that I'll post.

Yesterday (Thursday) was a day that made me think. It started off badly, very badly. I accidentally hit my camera with my foot and broke it. Like, its pretty much unusable in its current state. I was really upset about it, because I love taking pictures, it'll be a pain to replace and my boyfriend is coming to see more for a few days and we're taking a trip down to Portland, which I'd love to document. I tried to calm myself all morning, as did my boyfriend, which helped, but not too much. Help came in an unexpected form - a walk in client at my job. This guy had an illness, which had eventually ruined his kidneys (he was maybe 50 or 60). He'd (apparently) never really drunk alcohol, smoked or done drugs. Anyway, he was extremely fortunate in that a donor had been found for him, and the operation had been fairly successful. He was unfortunate in that his housing plans had fallen through at the last minute and he had no more money to stay in a hotel. So, basically, this guy, who'd just (like 5 days ago) had a kidney transplant, was going to have to sleep on the streets unless we were able to sort something out. (In the end he was able to get a voucher for a hotel for a few nights.)

Anyway, it really put my problems in perspective. Yes, its annoying that the camera is broken. But everyone that I love is fairly healthy, everyone knows where they're spending tonight and we all have an incredible support system in each other. The camera is a luxury item that I don't even really need, yes I having one, but I don't need one. The camera was expensive ($350) but not thaaat expensive (I get paid $450 a week). I'd like to put my salary towards other things (law school!), but at least I have the money to do something with!

The whole experience made me reflect on what's really important in life, and next time something "bad" happens to me, I'm going to think back to this experience and remind myself that its probably not as terrible as it seems.