Justified Guilt

I don’t often feel guilt, not because I’m always perfect but it’s just something I try to not feel because it’s kind of like eating oreos, you can never eat just one. I feel that if you let yourself feel guilty for something for too long you will be stuck with it. And it will weigh on you until you cannot handle it anymore. With holding on to the guilt also comes blame, anger, and many other emotions that are not conducive to living a happy life. So I don’t like to feel guilty mainly because I know how quickly it could be me down.

There is one instance though that I can never stop the guilt. I don’t ever dwell on it, except for now, but every time I am put in that situation I want to hide like I’m trying to hide from a serial killer in my home. My flight or fight instinct in these situations is to get the f#@k away as quickly as possible.  These situations never last too long but it is more than enough time to think about every possible escape route I have and have a panic attack  at an 8 on the “crazy person” scale of 1 to 10.

I’m sure I would be in a lot of trouble if I lived in a city too much bigger than my own because these detestable situations would increase tenfold. I guess I should come out and say it now for those of you who haven’t figured out what I am going on about. I can’t handle pulling up to an intersection where a homeless person is standing asking for money or food or whatever. It’s not that they disgust me, it’s that I’m disgusted in myself for never helping.

Today this happened and I had just been to pay our water bill and was going to pay another bill and that’s all the money I had. And when I saw this person standing there holding his cardboard sign I wanted to help so bad but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it without cutting my own throat. I couldn’t do it because I had to pay that water bill or our water was going to be shut off.  I can’t subject my kids to that, but there I was subjecting this homeless man to the thing I could never let my child go through. I know I will never be able to help everyone, but I may never stop feeling guilty for every time I can’t.