So...ever since Hurricane Florence veered off it’s original projected track, and took my own home off ground zero, I was very grateful. I feel bad for the many who have been affected by the havoc Florence has wrecked on North Carolina.
So when the call went out on the news Thursday from the American Red Cross, looking for volunteers, I knew what I needed to do. I signed up and they have me working three 12-hour shifts this week at the evac center in Chapel Hill (40 miles one way from my house)
Today was Day Two. I go back Saturday. And I volunteered for two more shifts next week, bringing me up to five total shifts I am committed for. Can ill afford the gas and wear and tear on my 17 year old POS while I myself am in fact going bankrupt (I made the final payment earlier this week to my lawyer)
But it has been worth every penny. I have seen more kindness in the past two days than I have seen in America in the past two YEARS since the Manchurian Orange took the White House. Several times over the past couple days, I have been moved to tears (good tears) — by everything I have seen.
Tonight, I bid a tearful good bye to my chickadees (three ladies I got to be friends with from Carteret County...because they get to go home tomorrow, meaning I won’t see them anymore) — we had a group hug after my shift was over. So many people have brought items, food, and the organization has been incredible.
So many people have thanked me and I kept telling them no thanks were necessary...I could not do what small part I was doing without everyone else behind me making that small part possible….and, truthfully, I needed this FOR ME...the kindness I was seeing...so long absent in America...was all the thanks I needed.
And there was something else...two things, actually. One, I knew that but for the grace of good luck...it could just as easily been ME in that shelter needing help, instead of being the one giving it. And the second thing was...this…
As crappy as my own life is at times (society has not been kind to transgender people, particularly in regards to economic opportunity) — as much as I have lived twenty plus years all but pauperized because of meanness hate and discrimination...what I was seeing...was people who had been evacuated from their homes...cooped up in an unfamiliar place...with whatever possessions they had been able to carry….not knowing when they could go home...or if home would even still be there when they got there...people who may have lost everything….
And then there was me. My beat up seventeen year old car...my single-wide mobile home...all I have in this world...and I was actually going home to my own bed and familiar surroundings after my shift — such little as I have in life still intact, knowing it was still there...and I know I am blessed.
As I said, it could just as easily been ME.
I am sore and tired now (but in a good way and for a good reason) so I am now closing this off and pouring myself into bed….but it has been an incredible, awesome experience. I just want to ask this:
If disaster brings out the worst in some of us...and it does...yet disaster also seems to bring out the best in so many more of us...if we all can come together in a time like this...and I can see the kind of kindness, care, love and support I have seen these past two days at the evac shelter...why can’t we do this all the time?