The guilt of being here

Guilt is a well-known concept to immigrant children. Those of us who immigrated with our families in our early years or were born to immigrant parents, who migrated for a better future for their kids. It’s not a foreign concept to us. It was served to us with every meal and every success. We always knew that we had to do better; that we had to do our best and then some more. Now add to that a civil war and loss of so many faces and lives, and we were the poster child to all those who couldn’t make it.

We were studying for all those who couldn’t study, and we were living for all those who didn’t have that simple choice. It’s a lot of weight on those young shoulders. A curse of the times, you could say. And yet, one so seeped in our blood that we could never justify our feelings. Am I allowed to give up because it’s so hard? Can I fail without feeling the burden of the world? Can I find joy in my simple pleasures without feeling guilty? And then the occasional thought of: do I even deserve to have all that I have, when my people out there did not?

It’s difficult navigating this special privilege: one charged with guilt at the mere existence of it. A guilt which questions if it is okay to live only to live your life, and to not fight every injustice and inequity in this world. A guilt which peeps every time you laugh and are happy, to remind you that many didn’t deserve the tears that were awarded to them either. It’s difficult to come to terms with and even more difficult to feel deserving.

Some cope with this guilt by doing all that is expected of them from society. To make a name for themselves in the ways that are most appreciated and accepted. Others try to force other ways of thinking and coping to force society to expand in more ways than one. It’s not an easy weight to carry and easily one that can overpower to leave you in the rubble. It’s difficult being a child of a war-torn country. It’s an experience that makes you question your values and beliefs over and over again. If you are doing life right by them, the souls who sacrificed their lives hoping for you to have a better world.