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___Anyone who says that they appreciate everything they have is full of shit. No one appreciates the little, every-day, mundane things, the small blessings we stumble through life without noticing. Damn the effrontery of anyone who says he values life more than someone who is dying. Petty blasphemers who claim they appreciate their health know nothing compared to someone with a terminal disease. Only those shriveled, pitiful, stick-figure children in Ethiopia understand the true value of food. Only someone who stoops over a toilet with her own violent retching ripping her esophagus knows the power of self image. You want to learn the importance of possession? Seek out the homeless. Do you want to appreciate money? Look to the poor. No one has life-changing revelations just because their feet touch the floor in the morning; it is only when an EMT pulls you from your mangled car after a freeway accident that you start to revere life.
___Until you’ve lived in the city, you will never appreciate the outdoors. Unless you’ve nearly drowned, you’ll never revel in the feeling of every breath filling your lungs. The deaf alone are keenly aware of the importance of sound. Only the paralyzed could possibly understand how marvelous walking is. If you are complaining about your haircut, you don’t understand how beautiful a single strand of hair is to a chemotherapy patient. Pilots do not appreciate flight. Whores do not appreciate sex. Every single thing we are never denied eludes us all the more; we are the ungrateful prostitutes of the privileged life. You can‘t value what you've never lost. Those who want for nothing care for nothing.
___I never understood how much I wanted to be a mother until I had a miscarriage. Just a month ago, I was heart-set on “termination.” The parasitic cell cluster growing like a tumor in my womb taught me that you can’t understand love until you’ve experienced heartache, because the second my boyfriend found out about it, he walked out the door and never returned. When you can’t afford an one bedroom apartment in the bad part of town, you catch a drift of the full importance of having a roof over your head. When you’re pan-handling for nickels to save up for an abortion, you become keenly aware of shame. I’m telling you all of this because you’ll never understand what falling from grace is until you’ve done it yourself. Consider the story that follows to be your official wake-up call, even though you’ll never, ever get it until it is too late.