Being Homeless
It is so easy to judge the homeless and so easy to become one. I was there once and it was an almost impossible climb back up. I sit now in an in a nice little mobile home I bought myself to make sure fate doesn’t leave me homeless ever again. Retired after over 26 years of Disability Advocate work, I am reading an old journal of mine from 1988. It is astonishing where the journey takes you and the strength you find along the way. I’ve decided to share these musings in my life in hopes of empowering someone else to never give up. A year after this entry my life would change, becoming even more devastating, before I could start my uphill climb to a normal life.
Journal entry from 1988 –
Another summer almost gone. The seventh one actually and no permanent home before school starts. Another year in the 30-foot travel trailer, the box of tin on wheels as our friends call it.
There is never enough money saved to pay the deposit and first month’s rent on a house let alone utilities. We always come close to this dream but then a child needs shoes, the truck breaks down, someone gets an ear infection and the pot gives reluctantly until it looks more like gas money than homestead money.
So, we sit again in a campground on the southern coast of Mississippi where the heat and humidity turn you into one big sticky fly attraction while pretending to be just another snowbird vacationing for the winter. The job of managing the KOA campground pays slightly more than the lot rent but it’s better than nothing.
1988 and the pot we do have to piss in has a leaky holding tank again. It’s not that it’s all been bad. We finally upgraded this month to a fifth-wheel trailer that is only six years old and close quarters have forced us to bond in ways reminiscent of earlier American life.
But, on those sweltering, muggy nights when trying to sleep is the most oppressive thing you can do, I sit on the picnic table top under the awning and dream my dream of a home I once had. As tears crawl ever so slowly down my hot cheeks I realize how easy it was to become homeless and how hard it is to try and climb back up
Hell, I thought, what do I need a house for anyway as I pop the top off my Miller Lite. “Buck up, there are people worse off than you” I hear my Mothers voice echo in my ears as I light up my last cigarette in the pack. My heart opens momentary to store another sorrow. Maybe I’ll just sleep outside on the lounge chair tonight.
Anger days and sorrow nights — that is my life. If I just had lyrics I would be a great country song.
Anyoneteachone 