I spent 18 months doing humanitarian work in Guatemala when I was just about your age.  I returned to school to finish my undergraduate degree, and enjoyed dating a variety of fascinating young men.  While I found the man of my dreams during that time, I think the fact that I was open to love, and interested in supporting and caring about other people helped me reconnect with life here in the US.  

During that time I helped mentor a young woman my own age from Puerto Rico trying to navigate her way through endless bureaucratic mazes.  She needed someone to give her rides, help her with her younger brother and just be a solid dependable friend.  Besides, I love a good fight with a government bureacracy because I know how to wear down the arrogant gatekeepers.  While I usually involved myself in bigger projects, in this case, I focused on helping one person in ways that would have been difficult if not impossible for her to do for herself.

When feeling slightly displaced remember that it’s due to your great array of options.  Life becomes more complicated the older one gets, much like a big Gordian Knot.  Try and loosen one strand and several others seize up.  When you’re young you more or less have a half-hitch knot: challenging but workable.

I would definitely include some type of social physical challenge in my daily (or a least twice a week) routine.  Dancing class, fencing class (I have a friend who does this and he loves it), pilates, rowing crew, improv class!!  Improv is always a blast!   Something, fun, social and active. Find people who make you laugh, hard!

Also, put together your travel photos and offer to do a mini lecture for schools, or clubs.  Post it on Craigs List.  You might inspire someone to follow in your footsteps.  

What an inspiring story about working relentlessly to be stable and productive and highly creative.  I read a research report that made the connection between creativity, and depression and extreme sensitivity to the environment.  So the same mechanism that makes people curious, and able to see things that others may not - perceptiveness, may also contribute to being overwhelmed by those same sensory experience.

For example, as a child and teenager, not only would I notice the dead dog on the side of the road, but would feel horrible about it, and imagine the feelings of the owners when they found out, and wondered if the dog had suffered, and on and on.   

I first suffered with depression as a teenager.  I was always so tired, so exhausted, so frustrated with not being able to keep up with my studies - and only as an adult did I discover that I had a bleeding disorder, so the exhaustion was coming from a chronic anemia.   That was easy to fix.  

But soon after my marriage, I had suffered a major depressive episode lasting for almost 2 years over, not only the divorce of my parents (my mother found herself a boyfriend when my father became ill) when I was newly married, but also the trauma of my father’s brain tumor - all at the same time.  My mother moved out all the furniture while he was in the hospital having surgery.  She was moving out the bedroom furniture the day he came home - she did have the decency to leave him the bed.  I was there when he had to sit in the kitchen with his bandaged head, and in his hospital gown, while she moved out her dresser and nightstands. Horrendous. A few weeks after that I had my first of many miscarriages. I was in bad shape for a long time.

 Had I not had my faith to help me, I’m sure I would have been self-injurious. But I didn’t do illegal drugs, or alcohol, but did get some medical attention, and that was a huge help.  So I greatly appreciate people who make it through and are willing to talk about the journey.

Someone wrote that severe depression activates the portion of the brain associated with agony - the same area that is activated upon a major injury like a broken back or broken leg - that level of agony.   Imagine telling someone with a broken back that they just need to adjust their attitude.  The pain is real, and relentless.

I am an Advisor/Weaver.  I love to research the solutions to problems and then help people see that they have an array of choices.  My background is counseling and organizational design so this seems consistent.  

We did have a homeless family living with us for 4 months, when they lost their home to foreclosure.  I tried to be an emotional support while helping her solve logistical problems.  Now we have two "foster dogs" of a family that has just lost their home to foreclosure.  I don’t think I’ll be able to give much helpful advise to the dogs. 

Drinking out of the milk carton.

Brussel sprouts: healthy or evil.

Eating while driving.

Not sharing my taste in baby names.

My cousins to this day, as adults, still claim that they saw their recently departed Grandmother sitting on the chest at the end of their beds.  One woke up before the other, and then they both were awake and saw her together.  They immediately told their mother.

My husbands grandmother tells the story of having either a vivid dream or a half awake experience of seeing her son in the military walking towards her while she lay in her bed.  He sat on the side of her bed next to her and told her that he loved her.    A few days later she received the news that he had been killed in a training accident on the same day as her dream. 

Personally I am very mathematically minded and believe in fractals - a fractal is a series of things that resemble each other in similar structures:  trees, brocolli; rivers and streams, veins and capillaries.  Universe, galaxies, solar systems, atoms, neutrons and protons.  Ferns have fronds, and each frond has leaves, in the shape of the fern, but smaller.

See the fern picture here:

http://classes.yale.edu/fractals/Panorama/Nature/NatFracGallery/Gallery/RealFern.gif 

I think we humans are the smaller scale fractals of a higher being, made in His and Her image  - creating our own creations, in our own images, as Creators ourselves.

I also don’t believe in "death" but rather our consciousness will shift from this life to the next, but we will retain our personalities, and affections for each other.    I also believe in the eventual resurrection for everyone. 

Here’s the link to Glenn Beck’s expose yesterday on Green jobs czar Vann Jones, self-proclaimed communist.  Vann’s own words are shocking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOgmwyfKuL8 

It’s interesting that Palin come from Alaska, the state that is renown for it’s individualism, freedom, self-reliance, and resilience.

While Obama comes from Illinois, the state that is renown for it’s corruption, in-bred political dynasty, and a city that provides political cover for some of the most notoriously radical terrorists in American history: family friends, and work associates of Obama, Bill Ayers, and Bernadine Dohrn - who babysat his children, and in whose home he launched his political career.

Sarah Palin was shrewd enough to get the President himself to address her concerns.  Palin has had a great career, a great marriage, loving kids, and has the courage to fight corruption.

1) A huge story is unfolding about the corrupt czars that have infiltrated our government.  

2)New information is revealing that one of the leaders of the Apollo Project the organization most responsible for most of the writing of the stimulus bill was a co-founder of the Weather Underground with Bill Ayers. 

3)The newly appoint New York Fed chief is a former Union AFL-CIO chief.

Pat Cadell, former Democrat pollster, said the Democrats have made government the enemy of the people.

The biggest story of the next 4 years is We The People fighting an out of control government. 

Yet mandatory cuts are coming to medicare reimbursements.  I know a physcian who left private practice, and became a teacher  because she could not afford the cuts to reimbursments and pay her overhead.  I just saw a cardiologist on TV talk about the 20% cut for medicare reimbursements planned for stent placements.  He said it will devastate the practice of cardiology.

I’ve discovered an important clue to Obama’s view of money and his cynical view of people’s motives in making money, ie doctors cutting off limbs just to get a larger reimbursement, (which turns out to be $700-$1000 NOT $30,000-$50,000) or his absurd example of a pediatrician taking out tonsils - when everyone know that pediatricians don’t remove tonsils - surgeons, or ENT doctors do.etc.

In George Kinder’s book, The 7 Stages of Money Maturity, he explains with a story.

(Setting: A woman in his workshop complains about the high cost of organic food, and believes that evil corporations are ripping her off every time she buys it. Kinder explains to her, after describing the higher costs associated with  emergent markets, that her charge of excessive profits, if true, represents an entrepreneurial opportunity - for her!)

"You mean go into the grocery business myself?"

"Why not?  If what you say is true, it would make good financial sense. Money makes it possible."

Kinder continues:

"That was precisely what surprised this woman, and so many countless others (ie. Obama) in our society.  Money creates a moral order that rewards us for our skill in delivering useful resources to other human beings.  The exchange that brings me the newspaper, the fresh orange, or a classic novel embodies a relationship of integrity between buyer and seller.  The degree of ease or tension between the amount supplied and the amount demanded determines price.  Price in turn guides society in allocating resources most efficiently.  Here, as in other ways, money creates an automatic integrity of relationship in the exchange between human beings.

"In essence, this woman’s resistance to the notion of money’s natural ethics and her resentment at the price of organic produce springs from ignorance-a lack of Knowledge. She, like many others had never imagined economic forces erecting a moral order that rewards our efforts and creativity in meeting other people’s needs.  Had she mastered the Practical level of Knowledge, she would  have had the SKILLS to compete with the natural food retailers she accused of overcharging.  Yet as long as she lacked the deep, MORAL layer of Knowledge, as long as she viewed money and the people who handle it as evil, she couldn’t even being to get to work."

(Page 117, subtitled, "Integrity Where We Least Expect It,")

In my opinion, Obama, lacks both the practical level of knowledge also known as money skills, and the deep moral knowledge that understands the natural integrity of money. Right now government is DISTORTING our relationship with insurers, in favor of the insurers and government officials who they support.

However, until MORE of the populace is educated to this idea of Money Maturity - many will continue to find the president’s warped view credible.  More people need to grow up in regards to money.

There are state regulations in every state mandating what health insurers MUST cover - the choice is the states’ not the free market.  So when government makes these deals with big insurance so that insurance companies can have more of the market in their state, then those same companies give money to those politicians.  It’s collusion.  

I actaully meant that there are over 1000 different insurance companies - some are co-ops, some are non-profits, some are for profit.  I’ve even heard in one report 1400 insurance companies.  I worked billing insurance - our markets and choices are shrunk by government mandates, such as certain types of care MUST be covered in each policy.  For Instance, in NJ I am NOT allowed to purchase a policy that would only include catastrophic illness or accident, which is exactly what I want.  Everything else is too expensive, and we are very healthy, and prefer to pay out of pocket for regular visits instead of higher premiums.

 In a recent interview Mitt Romney said:

 The nation already has over a thousand private insurance companies, many of the largest of which are not for profit, so his (Obama’s) excuse for forming the public government option —that it’s necessary to give people choices — is obviously fallacious. 

"The ongoing problems which a government plan would encompass would be massive subsidies down the road, crowding out of private not-for-profit enterprises and ultimately the imposition of a government-controlled system, or what would be at that point about one-fifth of our economy. It’s a bad idea and should be rejected."

I should be able to choose from whichever company and policy I want - but my state government will NOT allow it. Insurance premiums would plummet if the market were free and open.

http://www.freestrongamerica.com/press/item/mitt_romney_talks_health_care_solutions__human_events 

I  did earlier this morning - it’s after your question.  There are over 1000 insurance companies selling health insurance, the majority of which most of us are not allowed to access due to individual state over-regulation.  Each state has a number of mandates that make it incrementally more difficult to buy health insurance and reasonable prices.

For instance - Maryland has 46 mandates, New Jersey has 30 mandates for each policy, Idaho has 6.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/upload/84529_1.gif

When I was in the ER 10 days ago, explaining to the doctor why I was on the state plan since my private plan had been r "crowded-out"  by NJ government regulation, the nice doctor shook her head and said,  "Insurance is hard in New Jersey."

Notice that we don’t have to have grocery store reform.  Why?  Because the free market rewards excellence with profit.  The only place this doesn’t apply is the inner city, where again, government had distorted the market.

Walmart Super Stores wanted to build in Chicago and were told no way by the government due to union rules.  So urban residents are taking taxis and coming by public transportation to get to the suburban Walmarts to get the deals.

There are state regulations in every state mandating what health insurers MUST cover - the choice is the states’ not the free market.  So when government makes these deals with big insurance so that insurance companies can have more of the market in their state, then those same companies give money to those politicians.  It’s collusion.  

I actaully meant that there are over 1000 different insurance companies - some are co-ops, some are non-profits, some are for profit.  I’ve even heard in one report 1400 insurance companies.  I worked billing insurance - our markets and choices are shrunk by government mandates, such as certain types of care MUST be covered in each policy.  For Instance, in NJ I am NOT allowed to purchase a policy that would only include catastrophic illness or accident, which is exactly what I want.  Everything else is too expensive, and we are very healthy, and prefer to pay out of pocket for regular visits instead of higher premiums.

 In a recent interview Mitt Romney said:

 The nation already has over a thousand private insurance companies, many of the largest of which are not for profit, so his (Obama’s) excuse for forming the public government option —that it’s necessary to give people choices — is obviously fallacious. 

"The ongoing problems which a government plan would encompass would be massive subsidies down the road, crowding out of private not-for-profit enterprises and ultimately the imposition of a government-controlled system, or what would be at that point about one-fifth of our economy. It’s a bad idea and should be rejected."

I should be able to choose from whichever company and policy I want - but my state government will NOT allow it. Insurance premiums would plummet if the market were free and open.

http://www.freestrongamerica.com/press/item/mitt_romney_talks_health_care_solutions__human_events 

An American nurse was telling a friend that while she was working in England, she asked the other nurses on her first day on the the seniors ward, where patients were 16 beds to a room - Where are the CODE CARTS?

Those are the carts that have the resuscitation equipment.  She said they laughed at her and said, "You are obviously American.  We do not have CODE CARTS on the seniors ward." 

 Get it?  It’s obvious why that would be.  Can you imagine people knowing that if they stop breathing or their heart stops that they will not be resuscitated - even if they might like to be? 

 Colorado Democrat Gov Lamm has just informed us that terminal people have a "duty to die."  That’s socialized health care.