Perspective

Yesterday morning, my blackberry died. I was pretty sure my world was going to fall apart.

I um, occassionally let Isaac play with my locked phone. He likes to press the buttons and make it light up. If it's locked, I figured he can't hurt it. Sure it gets scratched to no end because he drops it and such, but I thought I buffered that with a neoprene casing. Not so much. Yesterday morning, he dribbled milk all over it, and the keypad/board DIED. No way to fix it.

Naturally, I freaked. We had to go to the store IMMEDIATELY to fix it. Like, when it happened, we were already late in fixing it, urgency.

I spent about an hour at the store, because we weren't eligible for a full upgrade until March 1, and no, they couldn't move that date up because technically it wasn't until May or something. Ben and I both got new phones in this past year. And being the genius that I am, I opted not to do the insurance because unlike my husband, I don't work in an automotive shop and lose it in cars all the time. Blackberry phones are not cheap. Without being eligible for the upgrade and rebates, I was looking at about $400. Unless, of course, I activated an old phone and used it until March, or added another line to our plan, which would cost about anther $14 a month but I would get a free phone. I opted to add the third line.

As I was setting up my new phone, I had the news on in the background. Of course, what is all over the news? The earthquake relief in Haiti. Now, I have been watching it and am deeply saddened. I did my text Haiti to 90999 to donate $10. But last night was a humbling experience. I watched all these images and videos of devastation, heard all these people retelling their account of the quake and who was lost to them. And there I was, sitting on my couch in my warm house, with dinner in the oven, dressed in clean clothes, watching my plasma TV and playing with my new Blackberry, while these people, these poor people, undeserving of this tragedy, were suffering.

I felt spoiled. I could have waited for a new phone. I WAS spoiled. Would it have been so bad if I couldn't get my email or tweets or texts on my phone for a few weeks? The money I had spent, getting this new phone, it could have helped these suffering people. I felt horrible and felt the need to do another donation. That money could have meant life or death for one of those beautiful babies being pulled from the rubble. One of those scared children, orphaned by the earthquake. Or refuge for an adult who lost everything.

These people have nothing.

I know everyone has their struggles in life. And, yes, we are fighting through an economic rescession and high unemployment. People are losing homes and jobs here in the United States. But let's be honest. Their entire world wasn't LEVELED. Katrina showed us that tragedy can hit close to home. But we pulled through it, because we had the manpower and the resources. Haiti doesn't.

As Americans, we have so much to be thankful for. We complain and we moan. We have debt, I have debt. We have sickness. But we have solutions. Just the other day I was freaking out because my daycare lady was telling me about her evacuation plan in the event of an earthquake. Reality was, yes I am terrified of the ground moving like that, but we live somewhere where there are strict building codes and evacuation plans and survival kits. Sure, we face our diasters. But not like what happened in Haiti.

I am blessed. I am spoiled. I have so much and don't realize that just giving up one of my mochas every week would help someone, somewhere more than I could ever understand. My husband balks at our $10 a day budget for coffee and lunch, etc. It is never enough for him, for me. How did we become this way, where that money that we have the luxury of spending on a frothy drink or deli sandwich is so taken for granted? How did I end up this person?

It is not the example I want to set for my son. I don't like to think of myself as ungrateful. But yesterday, I was acting that way. I needed a big dose of my reality, and just how good I have it.