Unexpected (Part II)

Today is the day when I write about something I wouldn't expect of myself, which is quite a task because everything I think of immediately seems like something about which I would write normally (go figure). My topic for today, which I don't think I usually talk about, is my guilt. As you may or may not know, for the past two summers, I went to El Salvador for three weeks to a village, Cacahuatal, for community service. I had the time of my life. I loved the people, the language, the manual labor (well, not really, but it was good for my spoiled brat attitude), and just had a fantastic time while also, you know, helping them. But even though I call El Salvador a "life-changing" trip...

I don't know if it was. I don't live my everyday life differently. I collect donations to send there instead of somewhere here, but is that really better? I tried to get people to contribute to a scholarship fund for two students there, but I haven't done a very good job this summer of organizing events (though to my credit, I am organizing a yard sale for August 14th or 15th, proceeds to the scholarship). Will I ever go back? I don't make an effort at all really to keep up with my host family because writing letters there is difficult, I tell myself, and even those I can email/facebook, I don't have very much to say. I'm not very outgoing in Spanish, less so than people who know less of the language than I do, and I just feel rotten when I think about it. I tried to purge my room for this yard sale, which is semi-successful, and I want to do something socially useful with my life. But when I get an email in Spanish that is too difficult for me to understand, or when it's been a while since I got incensed about the injustices going on there, I just...forget about it. It's always there, but I can't actually make myself DO anything. And I hate it. I despise myself. I despise the excuses I make for myself. I despise the fact that I let people comfort me into thinking it's okay, but I do. And I won't change. I've always been like this, about many issues, and I probably will always be like this. I don't have enough discipline to change the parts of me I don't like, but then I hate living with them. It's a vicious cycle and I don't know how to get out of it. I don't think I can.

I'm not usually that hopeless or dark. So... a blog I didn't expect to write. There you go.