I haven't posted anything in a long time. I've been meaning to do since last year. I started a new job/career and was worried how people in my RL would take it, let alone online. I am a Financial Consultant. Translation - I'm a financial planner who sells insurance, mutual funds, mortgages, etc. At the same time I have been having some small issues with my health. I thought it was too early but I should have recalled my mother having a 'nervous breakdown' when she was several years older than me. So I'm going through a change of career and menopause at the same time. It wasn't easy as I had to study and pass several exams and didn't realize that hormones were making it difficult to concentrate. Life insurance is NEVER an easy subject.

I was trying to get things started in my new career again when I didn't realize I required a root canal and had a bad infection early last month. I'm getting the temporary filling replaced on Monday as the dentist couldn't do it two weeks ago with the swelling and infection still there after taking antibiotics for a week.

During the same time I have found that I need to replace the roof on my home. The shingles which were 25 years warranty need to be replace - put on 1999 - after snow storm that then mayor (Mel Lastman) called in army. I was on vacation to come to come to water in my home. I need a new hot water tank as the current one was around in the disco era and a new furnace. So while I need a new furnace I may as well finally get central air conditioning. I need new summer tires on my car plus new brakes. And to top it all off, I lost my monthly transit pass on Friday. I haven't got quotes for everything yet, but I have not been doing well in my new career yet. I'm going to have to take more money out of my savings.

Then what you ask has put everything in perspective? When coming home yesterday from a mammogram(root canals, mammograms and I had a colonoscopy a couple of weeks before that - my life is SO exciting)I was walking on Yonge Street and saw an motorcycle accident take place on the other side of the street. One of the women hit on the sidewalk - she ended up in the middle of the street- had her boots fly off her. One of the boots landed 2 feet beside me so I took it over to where was. People had already called 911 and were assisting. I walked by the motorcyclist and saw his crashed in helmet and the pool of blood around his head getting larger. This really shook me. Today I saw this
http://news.ca.msn.com/local/toronto/1-dead-in-downtown-collision

I did hear the ambulances coming as I went down into the subway and said a prayer for all of them. Now I just hope he wasn't in any pain and his family and friends will be OK.

My life isn't so great now. I recall my SIL mother philosophy on life - If you can fix it with money, it's not a real problem. I use this all the time but with all my minor health and money issues I had forgotten it.

• RE: Putting my life in perspective,PepeLePew13, 10:24 PM, 05-05-13
• RE: Putting my life in perspective,kingfish, 08:51 AM, 05-06-13
• RE: Putting my life in perspective,cahaya, 05:17 PM, 05-06-13
• RE: Putting my life in perspective,dabo, 09:45 PM, 05-06-13
• RE: Putting my life in perspective,foonermints, 04:58 AM, 05-07-13
• RE: Putting my life in perspective,Dakota, 12:04 PM, 05-07-13
• hi,cqvenus, 08:03 AM, 05-08-13
  • RE: hi,Dakota, 11:32 PM, 05-09-13

LAST EDITED ON 05-05-13 AT 10:25 PM (EST)

Glad to see you again! It certainly seems like you've been having a real rough time of late, but things can only get better from this point on, no?

That's spooky about being right there when the accident happened and seeing all of the stuff close up - that'll certainly put things into perspective for you.

I had my own put-things-into-perspective moment the other day. On Thursday, I was driving home from work and midway through, traffic suddenly came to a complete stand-still and a couple minutes later, about six police cars passed by. I turned off at the next turn and took a different route through the countryside to home.

The next morning, I got an email from one of my students saying that he wouldn't be in class as his brother had passed away in an accident. That sent chills up my spine as I knew this student traveled the same route that I normally take to go home. I checked the news, and sure enough, the accident that caused the traffic jam I was in had involved my student's brother and I must have been only a few moments behind the brother. I did not have the same close-up experience that you had, but it was still a moment that made me wonder about the fates and timing of how things work in the universe.

Nice to hear from you again. Welcome back. Here, we can't really do anything to help but we can pontificate, oscurate, tangitate, sometimes perform close up magic, and soon you'll have forgotten what you came here for in the first place.

And one-ups-man/woman-ship. Come to us with your tales of woe, and we'll do our best to top them. As follows:

Had a similar experience house wise, ended up replacing two central heat/cool units, hot water heater, fridge, dish washer, clothes washers and dryer, roof shingles, a lightening hit tree, and another that I received a notice from the city to remove. Oh yeah, and replace a privacy fence.

And that accident! Yeah, that will set you to thinking. I saw a scooter (Vespa type) driver get his head squashed by a bus in a busy coastal city in Turkey once. The bus just ran over his head.

I hope your new career takes off, I understand that sometimes in that line it takes a while to get the wheels going. But slowly by slowly you should pick up speed.
Good luck.

You're taking care of that abcess. And you had your large intestinal polyps snipped. All that's road to recovery stuff.

Am hoping for and sending good thoughts for your life to improve. No charge.

Welcome back, tallgirl. We're all sort of a family here and it's good to see you in the household again.

It sounds like you're going through some changes in life, both major and minor, but combined it can often seem a bit overwhelming and yet you seem to be able to manage it with the words your SIL's mother shared with you.

I never experienced a scary scene that caused me to put my life in perspective until I moved to Malaysia more than 25 years ago. There, I was witness to several tragic accidents within moments of their occurrence. During the holiday seasons, my family and I would travel to Johor Bahru from Kuala Lumpur. I saw one accident where a bus full of holiday travelers sheared a whole side of the bus into a parked semi parked on the side of the highway, passengers tossed out the front window of the bus, laying lifeless in pools of blood on the asphalt of the highway. I told my wife not to look as my young son slept in the back seat. Twice I saw motorcyclists twisted and dead on the road from their high-speed collisions, once with a truck (nearly decapitated) and a car (sending both guys on the bike flying more than a hundred feet to their death).

And once, I had a brush with death in an armed struggle with two guys on a motorcycle, one brandishing a hunting knife attempting to hold up my wife and I as we walked back home from an evening dinner at a nearby outdoor restaurant (which I posted about then). And twice here in on this college campus in U.S., I've had two close brushes with death, once riding a bike on campus when a car turned out in front of me as I raced to a calculus exam, sending me flying to the other side of the intersection, sitting cross-legged in stunned silence with my bicycle crushed under the wheels of the car, and another time when my car blew a tire and clipped a telephone pole, a few mere inches from direct impact. I've lived a charmed life and I am grateful for the gift of life that I have been given from birth and again after these few very close calls. I am only inches away from not even being here to post this. Scary.

Yes, things can be replaced, our health can be restored, given monetary resources which not all people have, but we're only given one life in this world and it's up to us what we do with it and who we do it with.

Smooch...

Thanks for posting and for putting things in perspective.

We've had some pretty bad accidents around here in recent weeks. The worst, very close to home (at one of the entrances to our community) resulted in the death of a pregnant woman in her 20s. She was very near term and the doctors attempted an emergency c-section but couldn't save the baby either. Her two small children were with her in the car, fortunately they survived with minor injuries. But what a horrible trauma.

You should come and live with me, but Sandee would be mad.
*smoochie*

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I looked in to the worst darkness I had in my soul on Friday. I've seen a lot of unbelieveable things.
Not a box that should be opened. Pretty tough stuff. Yah, Hell.
God made a pretty tough guy. Probably made a strong girl in you.
Don't land on the Ayatollah!