Bittersweet From Start to Finish

      In the American culture, a person that has experimented and wandered away from what is right is considered "experienced" or "knowledgeable". However, these titles are only granted to those that wander and eventually return. There is no gold medal for knowing the truth and never veering from a righteous path, but the media is filled with stories of those that fell and triumphantly rose again. The examples I have to give are less triumphant than they are bittersweet. These people wandered and returned, but the struggle they endured and the life they lost during their wanderings serves as a warning for others.

     To me, the most obvious example of someone who had fallen from former glory and innocence in the public view was Britney Spears. I grew up listening to her music and slowly watched her transform from a girl into, what Rolling Stone called "raunchiness without coyness". She had everything--a promising career in the music and dance industry, money, beauty--but through several terrible choices she made regarding her personal life she jeopardized all of it. She was married and divorced within three days. She later remarried, had two children, divorced again, began struggling with drug abuse, and lost her parental rights because of her party habits. She spent several months in and out of rehab and psychiatric wards while the media had a field day destroying her name. By the time she had her personal life back in order, her career was considered a joke. She has pressed on and released several more albums with accompanying world tours, and for all intents and purposes has "risen from the ashes". However, it can be seen from her uncharacteristically quiet behavior recently that there is still more to work out, and ever still more scars to heal.

      It may seem cliche to refer to Bill Clinton as someone who has "wandered", but truth be told, he wandered once (and what's worse, he wandered publicly) and has never fully recovered from it. Bill Clinton's future was extremely bright when he went from being the Governor of Arkansas to the President of the United States. He instigated positive changes in the government, was heralded as a peacemaker, was re-elected for a second term as president, and then had an affair and destroyed the public's opinion of him. His affair was enough to prove displeasing to voters--what was far worse, however, was his continuous denial that it happened (until faced with incriminating evidence). He was the second president to be impeached (after Nixon) and later acquitted. After this stream of embarrassing events, Clinton has managed to stay in the public view without eliciting negative responses. His wife ran for the Democratic vote in the 2008 elections leaving Bill entirely out of the limelight. Recently, he has founded several philanthropic organizations and until 2007 was a special envoy for the U.N. aiding in disaster relief efforts. In the wake of the 2010 Haiti earthquake he was appointed as en envoy for Haiti by the U.N. to oversee reconstruction and aid efforts. Despite Clinton's recent achievements and progress, he will forever have a black mark on his name due to the affair he had while in office. Clinton has also "risen from the ashes", but he will never regain that credibility and political standing that was lost when he fell.
     Some things that are lost can never be regained. Especially when life is lived in the view of the public at every moment.