Floods and Sunrises

Yesterday was a terrible day.  I hardly slept the night before due to normal uncomfortableness of pregnancy, on top of an insanely itchy  rash I've now developed that seems to hit only a handful of women in their third trimester.  Obviously that means me.  We were running terribly late resulting in Rich nearly missing his train and I knew it was going to take forever to get to school due to the flood zones.  Sure enough, all connecting streets were blocked off and under water.  As I sat at a red light grumbling to myself, I noticed amidst all the people coming out of their houses taking pictures of the devastation the flood waters had caused, there was a man facing the opposite direction, away from the river.  He was standing on the train tracks in his business pea coat, taking  picture of the sunrise with his camera phone.  Idiot. What was he doing?  How can he be so insensitive, so oblivious to the trials these people are experiencing? I mean, the sunrise wasn't even a spectacular shade of pink or orange.  Just a normal sunrise, on a terrible day.  I wasn't sure why, but this man made me angry.

For some reason, the image of this man taking pictures of the sun while everyone else was snapping photos of the flood stayed with me all day and it wasn't until I went home early due to illness that I really understood.

The negatives in life are so much easier to focus on than the positives.  It's so easy to get caught up in my swollen feet, my aching back and my spreading rash than to remember that they are all temporary trials to bring a child into the world.  Because the bad things that happen almost make you feel like that how it's going to be forever.  I feel like I will have this rash forever and be uncomfortable forever and never see my feet again.  The truth of the matter is, I only have 4 weeks maximum of waddling before I get to hold my girl and introduce her to the world.  This guy knew how devastating the flood was, but he also knew that it was temporary.  The sunrise happens every morning, and he chose instead to focus on that.

For the last few weeks, I'm going to try to do the same.