Thinking on my feet

I can’t believe it’s been six days since my last post. I think this cold weather is a serious cause of brain freeze. Let’s not forget the freezing tootsies (toes). It certainly hampers my ability to think on my feet. All I want to do all day is hibernate under the covers.

The great thing about portable computers is the places that it allows you to write from. Tonight I’m snug under the blankets and grateful that it is not outside.

Sometimes – just for a moment – I try to imagine what it must be like to be homeless in the middle of winter. What it might be like to have only one set of clothes to your name and still be cold when you’re already wearing all you have. What it must be like to not have the modern amenities of a kitchen with a stove to prepare a warm meal or the nutrition that your body needs to keep you from getting sick. How do you sleep when you have no blanket, or the one you have is not sufficient to warm you. How do you sleep when your body can’t relax, trying to generate enough heat for you to survive till morning. How tired you must be? If you barely sleep, do you ever dream?

What it must be like for your life to be threatened over a piece of clothing, a blanket or maybe even a cardboard box shelter on a freezing winters night. They’re not interested in your Rolex watch or your diamond ring or your Mercedes Benz; just a blanket that could cause one to see another sunrise and one not to. My feet are freezing as it is, but imagine having no shoes, or shoes with no socks. Then imagine the one set of clothing you have or the only blanket you own being soaked in the rain and for the next three days – if you make it – the sun don’t shine and the temperatures don’t rise.

Sometimes I want to fix all the problems of the world and sometimes I just cry. Sometimes I’m just glad I’m not God because there are a lot of problems in this world. But every time it makes me grateful for the warm bed that I sleep in, the roof that shelters me from the elements, a hot shower, a full belly, a hot cup of coffee, the shoes, the jacket, the love that fills my life.

I might not be able to fix the world, but I know that somewhere, somehow I can make a difference. Someone can be warmer. Someone doesn’t have to be hungry. Someone’s life can somehow be better because of me. How about you?