The Discarded...

 Hi!

So what are you doing this weekend?

Well, where I call home, most of us will be sticking as close to our houses as possible. The awesome, mild weather we were enjoying is obviously over with temps dipping to our usual dangerous, hurts-to-breathe, stay outside longer than a few minutes, and lose appendages, type crap. 

The crazy thing is the -41 doesn't take into consideration the wind. With the wind it's much more likely to feel like -50 or worse... yay.

So here we sit. Cold, with about 8 hours separating daybreak from darkness.

Your frozen tentacles threaten to grip my spirit, your darkness wants to strip away my joy.

You want to hold me captive within my four walls, making each breath a penance for some imaginary wrong. The treacherous ice and snow provide a greedy exchange with unsteady steps, bruises for the lucky, casts for those not so. 

You strip away our blinders as it is impossible not to think of those without the luxury of four walls. Those who weather the dark and the bitter cold with little more than things others have deemed not important enough to keep. We donate only what we are willing to discard. I don't know how those who are without can't feel the same. Discarded. 

We live in warm places, with comfortable beds and full bellies. We have support when we have times of struggle. We have people to love us through our diagnoses, our addictions, the very things that would put us exactly where they are if those supports were knocked from beneath our feet. 

There has to be a better way.

While some obsess about cutting calories, others are digging food out of dumpsters. While some rattle around in mansions where staff represents the majority of the occupants, others bear the cold, covered in nothing but ill-fitting, worn-out discards.

What if the mega-churches with the tv preachers that like to scream otherisms at the top of their lungs, built mega-shelters instead. What if they sold their private jets and fed the hungry. What if the Vatican stopped spouting nonsense about putting an end to surrogacy, and put their energy and money into the problem of homelessness and addiction that they had a heavy hand in creating through the horror that was their residential schools. What if the super-rich invested in low-income housing instead of ego-driven trips to space. 

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As I sit in my cozy home, a warm blanket tucked around my feet, tapping away at the keys of this laptop, I am painfully aware of my privilege. 

I do what I can. But, at times, it seems pointless.

I guess I just can't wrap my head around having the means to make a real difference, but simply refusing to do so.  

To the Jeff Bezoses, Bill Gateses, Oprahs, and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world. You could fix this if you wanted to. All you'd have to do is settle for a smaller boat, maybe one less mansion, get rid of a car or two. You wouldn't even feel it. Not really. 

In the meantime, local governments need to do better to lift the cold, the hungry, the addicted, those who struggle with mental health, the discarded. They need to be the support, provide the support that is obviously missing. In a country as rich as ours, none of our citizens should be struggling to keep warm. 

But for circumstance, it would be me, it would be you, it would be our kids, it would be any of us. 

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May we do better.