Tuesday, January 1, 2019

New Year 2019


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.