Bars

September 15, 2008

There are bars on everything in India.  All of windows have bars across them.  I worry that if there is a fire that I will not be able to get out.  We have locks on everything, too. Everyone works hard to protect their things and themselves.  Everyone is trying to keep someone out.  There are times that I wonder about crime rate here because of these bars and locks.  The cold feel of the bars chills me to the soul.  However, I feel like I have used bars to separate myself from others.  People who know me may wonder what I am talking about.  I feel like I have put up bars around me so that I can protect myself from these new and different people.  None of them really know anything about who I am.  I am thousands of miles away from the people who actually know me.  But how can these people get to know me?  I don’t know myself in India.  I feel different here.  I don’t know what to think about myself here.  I don’t know how to look at my own life.  These bars fill me with a new type of sadness.  My guilt is more painful than I could have ever imagined.  My guilt about my own life compared to the people living in India.  I feel like I have trapped myself in an iron cage.  Here I sit.  The bars surround me in my little India cage.  I often think about why I have come here.  I hope that with some time these bars will go away.  There is just so much that I don’t know about this place.  It is really scary.