Holidays and Winter Season...2015 16th Season of Holiday Cheer and Winter on the Streets

Holidays....   What usually comes to mind when you find the Holidays approaching?  An abundance of food, the warmth of family and friends, games, traditions.  Those still come to mind, even when those Holidays are spent alone, on the streets when you are forced to live your existence outside, without the warmth that the Holidays usually afford people.  Holidays feel different on the streets-- when your life is reduced to the wide open expanse of nature with all her elements, her fury, her constantly changing moods.....

Holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, on the streets never make you feel more alone than at that time, when everyone else is preparing for company, and rich meals shared with many.  This time of year makes you feel even more abandoned and discarded.  After all, no one wants to bring the Homeless into the Warmth and folds of their homes.  Homeless are the Seams of Society, but only barely tolerated around the periphery of humanity, if even then.

Enduring my 16th Holiday and Winter Season on the streets, when there never should have been a single one spent on the Streets.  Each Season taking a harder toll on you in every regard; mentally, physically, spiritually.  You find yourself no longer feeling much of anything.   Life becomes rote, and automatic.  Dreams of having a home, or even the warmth of friends to share it with have long since faded into vapor rising from the ashes....

Being on the streets for so long changes you in ways you could never have imagined, if your time was not spent outside the natural folds of humanity.  You age much quicker on the streets, enduring more, and having less.   Less of life.... of connection, of being accepted.   Less food, less interaction with people, but a lot more interaction with the warmth and friendship of Nature's creatures that you share your life with throughout the long days and endless nights on the streets.   The only true interactions you have.  These wonderfully furry and feathered friends accept you right from the start, whereas their human counterparts, turn their backs to you, ignore you.... going out of their way just to make sure there is no contact, whatsoever.

I cannot begin to tell you what being forced to live on the streets, day after day, week after week, and endless year after year does to you.  It is truly indescribable.  You become different than you were, and much harder, as though your heart is filling with wet cement that is slowing drying you out from the inside.   Life was never promised to be easy, but we WERE promised a life of abundance and prosperity, a life not meant to harm, but to flourish.  Seems that is a promise that was broken long ago.  Because life has been anything but what was promised, in every regard.

So here I stand, enduring another harsh, cruel winter and Holiday Season on the streets.  It never gets any easier to face, but rather life becomes more of a blur.  A Life Sentence of perpetual punishment for a crime you never committed, but are held in contempt for doing.

Thanksgiving....alone on the streets, again and again.

Another Holiday Season is upon us..... another one spent on the streets, alone.  Spending another Holiday Season in the park, with a stack of books.  Thanksgiving was spent in the quiet park....My only company, aside from my furry and feathered friends, are the cops, harassing me for just being present.  Never once have they questioned anyone else around me, "requesting" their ID's, then perpetually running their information, time and time and time again, for the zillionth time, just for being present.  But they have zeroed in on me, for nearly 2 solid decades.  Never once just letting me be.  It isn't right.  And then they wonder why those of us out here, have no respect for them.  So, another Holiday Season is here, making this my 16th one to endure on the streets.  Wondering why I bother.  This is not a life......   but barely an existence. 

My heart feels heavier in my chest.  And the days become, or rather have already become, just one long season, where nothing changes, but then everything does.   The endless days, and then endless nights, are nothing I look forward to, but rather, another day closer to this punishing life sentence finally coming to an end.   Holidays are harder to deal with on the streets, only in the sense that not only is there no one to share them with, but every place is closed, making it more of a challenge to do anything, like clean up for the day, or change. 

When life, your life, has no meaning or purpose, is there really a point in being present?   When your life matters to no one, what is the point?   You find yourself just going through the motions, where everyday mirrors the last, then the one before that, and after that.....Holidays  mean absolutely nothing anymore.   Just another day of enduring the streets, in the barest sense.  

Becoming Citizens of Life, Residents of Nowhere..... the very moment you are forced to live your life, or the remainder thereof, on the streets.  Where the protection under the law and justice are no longer in effect to you when you have no physical residence to call H O M E.  You come to realize some truly unjust things about the "Protection under the Law and Justice for all its Citizens", when your life is conformed to the streets.

That protection doesn't exist or extend to you when those precious walls and roof are taken from you.  And you find Justice is nothing but mere words, holding no substance.   Nothing is taken seriously when you are on the streets; such as when you need to report an assault, theft, muggings....and the like.   Reports are thrown away, charges dismissed or never filed to begin with, your integrity is always suspect, and flip remarks are directed right in your face with "what do you expect, putting yourself out there like that?".   Regardless of how you came to be on the streets, such as through and by the illegal activities and actions of a despicable landlord, where you had no control over what happened.  

Even when a respected person in the community with clout, takes you to file a report, you are booted from the room, so they can question your integrity.  Only to toss out the report because of your given circumstance.   Protection under the Law and Justice for all, becomes nothing more than a cruel joke when life is on the streets.  

An Anniversary that never should have been...

September 1, 2015 marked an anniversary that never should have been, and should not have even seen a single one come about, much less the 15 I have now endured being forced to live on the streets.  I cannot begin to describe what being out here for so long does to a person.  Experiencing the absolute worst of life, and the deepest underside of Humanity; that has been less than HUMAN toward me than you could imagine, in its many brutal and cruel forms, all because of a circumstance I never chose, but have been forced to endure, from and by the illegal actions of a despicable landlord in the city of Alameda.

Being readily refused and repeatedly turned away for the service and assistance that I need, finding myself going in circles, trying to find a semblance of the "so-called help" that is supposed to be so readily available.  Not something I have ever experienced.  All of the places that are supposed to offer the help and support they purport, is nothing but a cruel joke, and has caused more harm than anything else.  Where the staff in these horrible places referred to as "Shelters", who are the worst offenders, cause harm to your person, becoming extremely abusive, both verbally abusive and physically violent with you and toward you, only causes more damage, in the truest sense, but offer no help at all.

I've been repeatedly told that I have been out here too long to receive the services offered.  That the services are only there for the ones who are on the brink of becoming homeless, or ones who have immediately become homeless.  Even churches and emergency centers that I was told to contact, have barred my number with the text message across the screen, "This number is for EMERGENCY CALLS ONLY", when I have contacted them to see what services they offer.  Apparently, being forced to live on the streets for more than a decade and a half is not viewed as an "Emergency". 

The programs in place now, were nowhere around when I was forced out to the streets, but continue to deny me the help I need because I do not fit the parameters for who they will help, and when.  So countless doors are slammed shut in my face at every turn. 

So another year has gone by, as so many before, and the chasm only widens, becoming so huge, you can no longer tell where it began, but pretty sure you know where it ends.  I never chose to be forced from my home all because I refused to "Service" a horrible landlord-- SO, I was forced out, illegally, and given the worst life sentence in the process, for just being present.  A very punishing life sentence, that is wholly consuming, and one that tears you to shreds, time and again.  Your life becoming nothing, as your presence is no longer welcome.  Discarded to the wayside quicker than trash.

So where do you turn when there is nowhere to turn?  The echoes of life growing dimmer with each passing moment spent out here by another's actions.

Faith, hope, and love are no longer apart of my life.... no longer exist, the last spark of which have long since evaporated..  They are just vestiges of a former life that no longer holds any meaning when your life is on the streets.  And September 1st marked my continuing life sentence imposed on me when I was forced out to the streets 15+ years now, to live, or rather, merely exist around the periphery of Humanity, of Society....of LIFE. 

As this will be my 16th Holiday and Winter Season on the streets, days hold no meaning, life.... no purpose.  And no matter what I do or where I go, help is nowhere to be found, especially not when you are clean, are not chemically dependent, have never done drugs, never drank, don't smoke, or their brand of CrAzY.

I wonder time and again, why I was ever born.  Is this all my life is supposed to be for????   To be on the receiving end of Humanities' Ugliness, year after year?  Has my life ever mattered?  I get the answers in the long stretch of nothing-ness that my life is now, living on the streets.  Every Birthday, Holiday, or any other day of the year, spent alone, and unwelcome wherever I go.  So why am I here?

Remembering to B R E A T H E...

Life.... takes on a whole new meaning, and the levels of meaning change when you are forced to a
life on the streets. Each morning I wake, that is, if I was given the chance to get the slightest bit of rest, and wonder anew why I am here. To serve what purpose, really? When life has lost any and all meaning years back, when hope was still a sparkle that could happen, that has long since gone by the wayside.

Breathing, and remembering to breathe, each moment, and through every minute throughout the day and night. They say there is a "purpose" to everything, but having to live and breathe on the streets every moment of my life..... where is the purpose there? And to be continually and readily denied my existence, the help and assistance I need, nowhere to be found. So where is the purpose of being forced to live, or rather barely exist along the periphery of society... of humanity, on the streets being denied my rights because of circumstance not of my choosing, but forced to endure, nonetheless....????? 

 Purpose? I have yet to find what purpose is meant by living on the streets, having to do all of your personal business in the wide open forum and theatre with a full attending audience in front of humanity, in the deepest sense. Your privacy ripped to shreds, time and again. When you have nothing to look forward to, no one to share your time, or days with. No one truly caring how you are, mentally, physically, emotionally..... spiritually. It takes a devastating toll on your person, on your heart, on your soul in ways that can never be healed. The things you are forced to endure because of the illegal actions of a landlord that put you out here.... the unbearable underside of humanity cast your way because your "home" has an endless roof overhead.

When you are put outside to live on the streets, your life as you knew it, is no more. Learning to survive not only the harshest extremes of weather, but the cruel, heartlessness of society. Echoes of what life used to be like is erased and becomes more corroded over in rust, as you begin to harden more and more on the inside just to face the next day, and night. Reminding yourself to keep B R E A T H I N G, but to what end? More than 15 years spent in mere existence on the streets, going into my 16th Holiday and Winter Season this year. And it never gets any easier to face another day out here, but rather pulls me further down into the unfathomable depths of no end.

I no longer try connecting with others, as people, for the most part, have really turned me away from life, and off from people. No longer a fan of this thing called L I F E, or excited about another day, another night, especially when it is spent on the streets......But I readily connect with my furry and feathered friends that share my nights with me, and welcome me into the folds of their space. Spending so much time in nature has afforded me the chance to become closer to nature and her beautiful creatures, than I ever have been to a single person. They are my closest companions, and confidants. They are who I share my passions with, the ones I have connected to, and the ones who have openly accepted me. They have never condemned me, criticized me, ridiculed me, made fun of me, laugh at me, or any of the other uglier things that people have done and continue to do whenever they are near me.

Being a physically challenged female living on the streets has it's own challenges to contend with, that male counter parts do not. So I force myself to keep breathing, in and out, day-in, day-out. I literally have to remind myself to breathe and keep breathing just to get through the day, and every day that follows thereafter. Something that should come so naturally is something that I am very aware of and have to remember to do so....... wondering why I bother.