Pointing fingers.

I'm troubled.

I traveled with my DPT classmates to Grand Rapids, Michigan this week for some clinical experience in a spinal cord injury rehabilitation facility. We took a drive through downtown when we left.

As we drove through the city, I craned my neck to stare out the back windows of the car, trying to avoid being smooshed into the glass by the bodies crammed alongside in the narrow backseat. I stared as men with genuine leather briefcases and tailored suits strode down sidewalks, with backdrops of clothing stores with "F. David Barney, Clothiers" scripted on the sign overhead. I stared as a woman in a very fine skirt suit picked her way around puddles and cracks in the crosswalk, wearing sunglasses carefully selected to accent her perfectly styled hair and to obscure her hard, no-nonsense gaze. I stared as a man in an oversized Miami Heat letterman jacket and drooping jeans shuffled past, pushing a shopping cart. I stared at the soles of worn boots, straining to see the face that belonged to the sleeping form clothed in dingy layers lying on a flattened box.

I'm troubled.

I'm whisked back to a memory of a packed freeway, looking off to the left over rusted tin roofs that stretch to the horizon and beyond. An island of worn and decrepit and unsightly amidst the skyscrapers of Nairobi. A home to hundreds of thousands – some say a million – fighting tooth and nail to survive. I look to the right, and see a man in a spotless navy wool suit, climbing out of his car to scold the unfortunate driver who grazed the fender of his gleaming BMW, unheeding of the traffic building up behind his parked vehicle. I look to the passengers in the vehicle with me, another island: an island between two worlds, but an island unwilling to bridge to either side.

I'm frustrated. After six millenia, we still haven't figured out how to minimize the societal differences. The rich, the poor, the middle, and the in-betweens.

I point fingers. I point at the man on the stoop, asking, "Why does no one help him?" I point at the woman, wondering, "How much of your credit line could you have spared by wearing something off the less-fine rack?" I point fingers, but I'm completely off target.

Then, with difficulty, I point to myself. The "struggling" college student. The one who has a room to herself, and food in the fridge, and money in her bank account for the necessary items, and tuition paid. The one who has a full closet, with some clothes so infrequently worn that she's forgotten them. The one with passing grades, and a shelf full of textbooks; with a promising career, and a way to pay off debts. The one with financial backers that will step in if she can't make ends meet. The one with multiple jobs, while others wish for just one.

I'm troubled.

I'm afraid to bridge the gaps between classes – it makes me uncomfortable. It's easier to lock the car doors and peer through the windows, or to click the link that says "donate now", or to simply imagine all of humanity into utopian societal equality.

Love isn't just a feeling. And it isn't comfortable.