I'm Just Sayin'

My friend Priya and I crouched behind the couch. We were breathing heavily. Okay, I was breathing heavily. She’s 13!

In front of us was a pile of socks and a Nerf gun with half of the ammo missing.

“What do we do now?” I whispered. She peaked around the corner, looking for her brother–our sworn enemy in the Sock War.

“I think we need to make a run for it,” she whispered back, stuffing her pockets with socks. I followed suit. With a whoop, we both sprinted towards the stairs, followed closely by her brother, who had my favorite trouser socks clutched in his hand.

At the top of the stairs, we all collapsed in laughter. “You should blog about this,” said Priya.

And then she paused.

“Oh. Never mind. You should blog about everything that’s going on in Haiti. Right?”

And there it was. The very reason I havent’ blogged since January 12. The devestation in Haiti has felt all-consuming. Because of the nature of my work with Compassion International, natural disasters are not a fleeting thought. As with all of my co-workers, it is something that we’re consumed with 40 hours a week. And then at night, we lie in bed, thinking about those who are lost, thinking about those who are suffering, thinking about the months and years of rebuilding that will come.

It’s hard to understand why something like this happened. Why it happened in Haiti. They had nothing. And now they have less than nothing. How is that even possible?

I don’t even know what to say in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti. Words feel inadequate. And for a writer, that is a scary, uncertain feeling. I’ve done some journaling, and I may share some of that later. But for now, I need to write. I need to write about Haiti. But I also need to write about the day-to-day things in my life. The silly things. The mundane things.

And I have to remind myself that even when I’m not writing about Haiti, I am writing as a person whose heart is heavy for Haiti.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 2:35 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.