Perspective

I used to work for a woman whose husband had cancer. It was a rare form and often terminal. He survived and last I had heard was cancer free.
Going through that changed her though. The person she was when I first met her was not the person she had become when I'd seen her last. She quickly became bitter and unforgiving and so engrossed in her own life's challenges that she failed to see that while her problems were incredibly severe and painful to her, other people had problems that they felt to be equally severe and painful to them. Her world had stopped and it angered her that anyone dared to feel as though they suffered in any way when she was suffering herself. She belittled others problems and feelings.

There is a scene in the movie Spanglish where Tea Leoni reveals her extramarital affair to Adam Sandler. He says to her (I'm paraphrasing here) "I heard a crack in the universe. Wow, that was noisy"

I truly believe that all of us, if we haven't already, at some point in our lives will hear that same crack. It's the one you hear when the world has stopped spinning and you can not comprehend how or why others around you are just going about their business as if nothing has happened. It's the one you hear when your world falls apart.

I hosted my own little pity party yesterday. I felt sorry for myself for what I went through in the 'year from hell'.
Later on yesterday I came across the blog of a fellow FF member. Her 11 month old son nearly drowned earlier this month. He's now got undetermined brain damage and a long road to recovery ahead of him.

Reading this moms blog gave me some perspective. We all have something. We all have baggage, issues, worries. We all, at some point, have heard the crack. And no matter what made that sound, no matter what stopped our world from spinning, there is someone out there who who is going through something equally as painful, if not worse.

I don't think it's taking solitude in knowing that someone out there has it worse than me. I know that. All I have to do is watch a commercial for Christian Children's Fund. I think it just reminds me that no matter what, the world is still spinning and I don't want to end up like that former boss of mine. I don't want to be the person who thinks that my problems are more significant than anyone else's. You lose your support system pretty quickly that way.
And at the end of the day, having each other is what quiets the noise and gets our world spinning again.