New Year’s 2025
A New Hope…
A new year unfolding right in front of me. A new year
filled with hope. Something I haven’t experienced
for so long I know not where to begin to place it.
Being forced to live on the streets for nearly a
Quarter of a Century has left an Indelible mark on
every facet of my life and all through my body.
Finding myself living in Gratitude for seeing
colors and beauty all around. For having a solid,
safe roof over my head at the start of a New Year,
instead of being outside. It is a very new, very
different, very beautiful way to live.
Grateful to have a bathroom to use, and a bed
to lay on. Birds right outside my window, their
songs, a continual melody to my heart.
I was on the streets for so long, there was no
differentiating me from the streets, where I
began and where the streets ended, where the
streets started and I ended… it was so intricately
woven into the fabric of my very essence. I
could not tell one from another.
Even months after finally getting off the streets,
I cannot let go of the streets. It remains in all I do,
in how I respond, and in the essence of me. I am still
caring for the elderly gentleman whose son gave me
the step up and the hand up, not a handout, to get
off the streets that I have needed for this entire
century, though, certainly not in the way I
hoped for, but a step-up, nonetheless,
that lifted me from the streets.
But it was a path off the streets, at least for the
time being. I cannot say how long I will be here.
Paul’s dad has had to keep returning to the hospital,
then to their rehab. He will be 89 years of age this
year…. He has long since outlived his body in every
way. With him constantly falling and unwilling
or unable to use his weight to stand, he goes back
to rehab, hoping to gain the needed strength to
be at this house and at least be able to get up
and use the bathroom on his own, which is
something he is having more and
more difficulty with.
As he returns back to the house, Paul will give
his dad a few days, and if his dad can manage getting
up and using the bathroom on his own, he will be able
to stay. But if he cannot use it on his own, Paul will
be placing him in a nursing home. I do not know
where that leaves me, but for now, Paul is
keeping me on to take care of Abby, his
mixed breed dog, and to keep his home kept.
It puts my residency in a Limbo I am not at all
comfortable with. It literally hangs in the balance
of Paul’s decision, which affects more than just
his dad. I absolutely dread having to go back to
the streets, but with the limited income I receive,
that leaves little option for much else, but
doesn’t make it any easier having
to face the streets once again.
I am trying to stay positive, hope for the best.
A different start to this New Year,
to be sure. And perhaps I can finally put the
Streets behind me, though the streets remain so
deeply infused into every pore of my essence…
it will never fully and entirely be behind me.
A New Year filled with the promise of a New Start.