Hurricane

I am back to my everyday life in the real world. I am exhausted and drained from my week of service in Mississippi. It was about an hour from New Orleans. I think I would have been exhausted and drained anyway from sulking around the house all of break as well. Depression is exhausting no matter what the circumstances. It makes everyday a challenge to get motivated.

I was certain the first couple of days on the trip that I had made a huge mistake in agreeing to come. I didn’t want to be there. I was miserable and I felt far too weak to be in a location of such devastation. My day spent in New Orleans left me feeling so depressed that I was left wishing I could just disappear. I had no relief whatsoever during that time. I was feeling low as it was just from being on the end of a down swing from depression (I have days where I can at least function followed by days of complete apathy and suffering. It goes in cycles). We then arrived to New Orleans where I first saw some of the houses destroyed as well as packs of poor kids hanging out on porches. I was surprised at how little is left of the city. That was devastating enough, but as we began walking in the French Quarters, my friend Adam and I saw a young woman walking alone sobbing. I felt sympathy for her. I think I would have felt actual empathy, except for the fact that I am so numb and apathetic that I don’t cry anymore. Adam commented on how he had the desire to ask her if she was okay. I had the desire to help her also, but it seemed inappropriate considering we were walking opposite directions. I also thought about how if I am crying in public that I don’t want anyone to pay attention to me, because I am usually rushing to somewhere private. We went to lunch and shopped a little after that. Then I saw the crying girl in a souvenir shop. I recognized her as the girl that had been crying, and I was happy to see that she was no longer crying. I noticed that she looked a little stressed so I gave her a sympathetic smile, because I genuinely felt bad for her. She looked like the type of girl I would see in Ann Arbor. She had a tank top under a grey long-sleeved and off-the-shoulder shirt with her sandy blond hair half up and half down. I felt like I knew her, or maybe even saw some of myself in her. After I smiled at her she came over and asked Adam and me to borrow one of our cell phones. She claimed hers had been stolen the night before. Adam did not have his, and I was a little apprehensive because her breath smelled so strongly of alcohol that I was getting nauseous. I didn’t trust her with my phone, but she assured me it was a local card. She showed me the number that she was calling. It was scribbled on a crumpled piece of paper that she was holding. She was not very big and Adam is a bigger guy, so I realized that I had nothing to lose and that I could help her out. I let her use my cell phone and she could not get a hold of the person she was calling. She did not leave a message and she looked concerned. I asked her if she would be okay and she proceeded to ask the time. Before I could look she looked at the left hand her watch was on. As she held up her left hand to look at her watch I noticed her hand was extremely swollen and black and blue. I thought maybe she had been badly beaten the night before when her cell phone had been stolen like the naïve small town girl that I am. It turns out she was such a heroine addict that she could no longer inject it into her arms and legs, but had to move on to her hands and in between her fingers. It broke my heart when I apathetically responded to her thank you as she handed me my phone, “Well, I hope everything works out for you.” She looked like she might cry and she said “thank you. I really hope so too,” but the way she said it made it sound like she didn’t think things would work out. Her hopelessness scared me, but I think it was because for the first time I could understand what types of darkness could drive someone so low. For the first time I saw this heroine addict as another human being that was just as human as me, and not some scary monster that I can’t relate to. It really bothered me over the rest of the week. It made my stomach hurt all of that day whenever I thought about her. It wasn’t just her that bothered me, it was all of the homeless people. I wonder what keeps them going. I can’t keep myself going in a perfect environment. They must have some type of strength that I do not.

We ended our day in New Orleans by visiting some of the really devastated areas. My heart ached with every X I saw on the doors with numbers of bodies found inside. We found a half smashed snake. It had crawled into a hole for cover and then only made it half in the hole. It was lodged pretty deep into the hole, but there was a good portion of it completely flat from the water. I don’t like snakes, but I felt sorry for it. There were watermarks on the houses from the flooding. The watermarks were all well over my head. I can’t imagine having to swim to get outside of my house. It has been almost two years and there is so much damage that is unreal to me. I couldn’t even imagine the type of devastation that was there without having actually seen it myself. After this trip my eyes have been completely open to what is going on down there. This split-level house really struck me. There must have been two families that lived there, but I was left looking into the doorless home with all of its windows shattered, including the second floor. The home was completely destroyed by the hurricane. It was marked to be bulldozed standing as a reminder of all of the losses. I looked through the shattered window on the second floor. I noticed a white ceiling fan, and I figured it must have been a bedroom. It made me think of my white ceiling fan, and what would happen if I lost my bedroom and my home.

The actual building on the trip made me feel like I did make the right choice in going there. When we started there was only a frame of the house. There were no walls or roof. When we left four days later, there was siding, floor being set down, shingles, everything was painted, and it was really looking like a house. We really helped build a house. I did things that I never thought I could do. I did all types of small tasks, a lot of painting, I got on the roof and helped to nail boards down, and I caulked a bunch of windows. It was really rewarding to see such amazing progress and get to see the homeowner’s excitement.

There were other nights when I felt I didn’t want to be on the trip, but Adam pointed out, did I want to be at home? Did I want to be at school? It was just the depression making me feel like I didn’t want to be anywhere. I felt like I saw a lot of hypocrisy and truth on this trip. That makes religion just as impossible as it ever has been for me. I began to realize that maybe everyone is not as above me as I had thought. I always assume that everyone is much more wise and self-aware than I am, but I am starting to notice people’s flaws quicker than I notice their strengths, which is probably a result of my new depressing lens that I use to view life. I am glad for the experiences I had on this trip. I think it is one of the most influential things I have done all year. It wasn’t some miracle worker; in fact it was a tremendous challenge to keep going every day. I am glad that I went though, but I don’t know that it helped my depression at all. I am thankful for my new relationship with Adam though. It is nice to have friends that understand where I am at spiritually and emotionally.

There is so much to write about involving my experiences this week. I have pages and pages of journal entries. I don’t think I can begin to decipher how I felt on this trip, let alone try to convey my experiences to others. I have posted some pictures to give you a feel of it.