Perspective

What a morning. It has been pouring rain since about 6:30 this morning. Crazy amounts of water falling from the sky.

Luckily, for me, my neighbor offered to drive the girls to school this morning because next week I'll be driving to and from school while she's out of town. I felt bad for her having to drive in this, really I did. But I hate and am slightly terrified of driving in this kind of weather. This is probably due to the fact that the only wreck I've ever had involved hydroplaning on the freeway, hitting a guardrail, and ending up facing traffic. But I digress. Obviously if there had been no one else to take Twinkle to school today, I would have done it. I just would have been a mess when it was all said and done.

After driving, yes driving, Twinkle next door for her ride to school, I came back home and had some tea, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and generally relaxed. I had planned to go to the gym today, but the image of carrying Sparkle and an umbrella in a monsoon deterred me. What can I say? Sparkle and I are going to have an inside, thank God we can stay dry, kind of day.

I also checked out the radar. Our area on the radar had this huge, red blob on it. "Well, that explains a lot," I thought. Then I wondered what more was on its way toward us so I zoomed out on the radar. I kept zooming out and zooming out until I could see all of our state and the states around us. Our big red blob became very small, almost impossible to see for all the green which simply shows that there's rain in the area. There were green dots here and there around our state and to the north of us. But, on the whole, it was mostly clear. Here we are covered in red on the close up, wondering what is going to come washing down the street, while around us others are waking to the sunshine.

It just hit me. So many things can make us try to find perspective in our lives. Reading about the death of a child who is close to our own child's age. Hearing about someone losing their home to a fire. A friend finding out they have inoperable cancer. Today, for me, I got all philosophical about the radar. It's hard to imagine that there are others out there, maybe only an hour away, who aren't covered by a big red blob. They are in the clear. And we could be in the clear in no time. And when we are in the clear, they may under the big red blob.

I guess the next time I'm feeling like I'm under a big red blob, I'll try to zoom out and get perspective. Sunshine isn't too far away.