Friday, December 02, 2005

Perspective

I was in the (mental) hospital for almost a month, and I was depressed for months prior to that, so can you IMAGINE what my house looks like now??? Boo-hoo. This is depressing! Which brings me to today's guilt trip. Actually, it started last night while watching Letterman...

Didja see Oprah finally appeared on his show, after 16 years? Okay, wait -- the guilt trip started even earlier, when I watched OPRAH's show in the afternoon...

Oprah showed footage from one of her trips to Africa to show what her Angel Network Foundation is doing. Seems the lovely people of South Africa sell their 9 and 10-year-old daughters in marriage. The girl then gets pregnant, and because her body is not fully developed, she will spend DAYS in labor delivering a still-born child. In the process, she will develop a fistula which causes her to leak urine for the rest of her life. The husband will then shun the girl (because she smells bad) and she spends most of her life in isolation. So, Oprah's Foundation pays for the corrective surgery on these girls and sends them to school. Where is my guilt trip in this? It's in the face of one of these girls who suffered through four still-births. Twelve years old, the same age as my best friend's daughter, and she has experienced agony on so many different levels that it's heartbreaking to contemplate. You want to talk depressed? DEPRESSED??? Oh, my Sweet Jesus God, forgive me. This child didn't get a month in a fancy-schmancy hospital to work on her "issues" while taking medication to "elevate her mood." Never have I seen such sorrow in a child's face. She looked a thousand years old.

And I'm "depressed" about my house. Yeah, right.