New
Year 2019
Life
on the streets.... Every day of the YEAR
As
the New Year begins, life on the streets remains enmeshed.
And
the ugly weather that ended 2018 carried over into the New Year.
So
the New Year is already starting off on a bad note.
Stormy
weather with high powered winds and heavy rains
filling
each day. When the New Year comes about,
it
is supposed to be a time of resolutions and goals being set.
But
when you live literally every moment of your life without a home;
resolutions
and goals take on very different meanings.
And
none of the top “resolutions” people make like lose weight,
which
is always at the top of everyone's list, even make the list
when
life is lived on the streets. Instead, you wonder when you will eat,
what
you will eat, where you will eat or how. And survival,
in
the literal sense, becomes your Resolution.
Life
on the streets is highly unpredictable and stressful, and is like
living
on a perpetual earthquake... never knowing what will happen at
any
given moment. I cannot summon excitement for the new year.
It
is just another part of the long, extended day of life on the
streets,
where
all time and days blur together. Time no longer holds any
substance
or meaning. Friday feels the same as Tuesday, which
feels
the same as Sunday, and more of the same each day of the week,
no
matter what day it is, they are all one and the same on the streets.
Goals
turn into eating, finding some place to get some real rest that is
not
constantly disturbed, have warm clothes to wear during the colder
months
and chilly temperatures, allowed to BE without being harassed
for
just being present, have safe coverage at night to get out of the
direct
elements, and be able to take care of all you need to,
especially
in terms of the most basic needs. These are goals we
try
to achieve when you live outside.
The
year may have changed in number by one digit, but it still leaves me
literally
out in the cold, and the high winds and heavy rains.
Circumstances
remain, no matter what I do, where I go....
my
life has been delegated to the streets for the indefinite future.
Still
haven't come fully to grips with that. How does one come to
grips
knowing that no matter what you do or where you go,
the
assistance simply isn't there and you are forced to live,
or
rather merely exist, day-in, day-out without the safety and comfort
of
a real home? When you know that no matter what you do,
life
won't allow you to move forward...
but
only breathe one breath at a time, and take another.
I
was hoping this year would be a better start, but thus far, not
starting
off
good in any regard. Really ugly and nasty weather, food poison
again
from a prepackaged salad and having to contend with the
aftereffects
of that, again. And when you have no place to be,
no place to go, you
feel the cruelty of life. And finding
Hope for the New Year is nil.
This
is not a year I am looking forward to.
