Up & Down

So, I was feeling a bit down. First off, if you are one of the three people who have not heard this story -- I messed up my shoulder. Wednesday night, I was getting out of bed in the middle of the night to go potty and Charlie was laying on the side of the bed. I guess I wanted to make sure I cleared him and it was 2am and my balance isn't the stuff that legend is made of... And :::SCREAMING, CUSSING CRASHING, BANGING:::: OW, FUCK OW... I was on the floor in a weird heap by the bathroom door -- which is less than 2 feet from my side of the bed. I finally managed to get myself up only to have a horrible pain in my right arm. Go to the doctor in the morning and they guessed that I must have almost popped my shoulder and damaged the tendons around my shoulder blade. I have limited mobility and have figured out how to type by dragging my arm onto the desk Quasimodo style. (Quasimodo but very very hot!)

So, needless to say I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself. Though, honestly I'm really only in pain if I move it some way I'm not supposed to. It's mostly the inconvenience and the BAD HAIR that I am just hating now.

But a lot of that went away tonight. Because in my last PoliSci class, the professor showed a documentary called Darwin's Nightmare. It was horrifying. A graphic depiction of life in an African fishing village and all of the tangents that spin from that. From the prostitutes, to the children living in the street and sniffing boiled glue to deal with the horror of sleeping on the street and being raped, to the Reverend who said he can't pass out condoms to people in the village even though they are dying from AIDS because that would be saying it's okay to sin, to the Russian/Ukranian pilots who bring in ammunition that fuel the many wars going on in Africa, to the man who guards the factory for less than a $1 per night who would kill a burglar inside the fence with a poisoned arrow... It was a stunning portrayal of the kind of poverty that I will never, never know in my life.

Really put my life in perspective and I was so desperately needing that. I so frequently fall into these mememe traps and it's just... I hate that about myself. I mean, I have a meme blog, but I still never want to get so mired in the me that I lose perspective. I have some down spots in my life now, but I have options and the means to get them. It may be a pain in the arse to fix my troublespots, but the point is that they really AREN'T hopeless.

I'm grateful for the life I have. It's good to be reminded of that once in a while, don't you think?