This post has been in my head for days, but I haven't been able to piece it together. The only reason I can do so now is because I'm a procrastinator and avoiding something else.
When something like Sandy hits on the opposite side of the country, I feel useless. And it happens every few years, like with the Aurora massacre, Japan, Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 tsunami, 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombings and all of these horrible things that happen in other places where I'm not and can't help.
I mean, I do what I can, I donate and try to be active and informed but it never feels like enough. I'm never doing enough. I didn't go to Haiti to rebuild houses, and I wasn't in the search and rescue after the tsunami in Japan. I'm not a firefighter or an EMT and I want to do more than take five seconds to donate and then live my happy little life where I try to make kids succeed in school and bask in the sunshine as long as it lasts. I'm living the California dream and it's times like these, when my countrymen are starving, trying to rebuild, have gone without power or clean water, that my life feels so gross.
It's almost like survivor's guilt. But what else can you do when you're not supposed to donate items; when you live on the other side of the world? I can't just pack up my life every time a disaster strikes, although I'd like to.
How do you help? How can I?
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