The Longest Year...

The Longest Year...

It's been a long year. A very rough year. Definitely one of the

worst ones yet. On the streets, the years stretch and

pull you to breaking. Decades of life gone by the wayside,

taken from me by and through the illegal actions of a

despicable landlord. Years on the streets, the roughest punishments,

and phycially one of the worst I have experienced while layers

upon layers of pain and suffering this body piles on top of more.

Too much to list, because the list keeps growing.

And Financially, December 2019 was the most draining

month I have ever experienced. By a Huge Margin.

Decades lost, and taken from me.

Dealing with the hand I was dealt, but have never been

happy with the draw, and certainly not the game I wanted to play.

Deflated.... is what life on the streets does to you.

It goes way beyond draining... it is a constant draining of life, while

you feel like your body and soul are being drowned in wet cement,

that is slowly hardening and drying you from the inside out

But life goes on automatically. Deterred by nothing.

Leaving me, and so many others in its wake.

Losing all Fatih and Hope of ever having my own home...

of ever being Safe and warm and finally be able to let my guard down.

Life has shattered that illusion. I have heard it said that we don't go

through our experience for us, but rather to help others through it

down the line. How is my being forced to live indefinitely on the streets

happening so I could help others down the road going to work?

Tell them to be sure to get hooked on drugs and alcohol,

become chemically dependent, have dependent children and

be sure to be an illegal Immigrant.... and they will receive

Carte Blanche in services? Otherwise, you become a

non-existent being.... who is refused and denied

the services, support and help you need.

Tell them of the challenges you face as a single, physically

challenged female? Of the Harassment and hassling from

Law Enforcement for just being present and having no place to go?

Inform them of the struggles to keep moving forward? What and how

would my circusmtances and experiences benefit others, in any regard?

Especially in terms of living outside without a home for so long, that

your only existence is that of being Homeless, and the

only thing you become known for?

Tell them how you are no longer seen, no longer

treated as a living, breathing, feeling being?

Tell them how living on the streets is fully consuming?

Tell them they will learn about what real need is? What true hunger is?

Tell them that nothing can prepare them for life

on the streets, even being fully and completely immersed in it?

Or find some way to start a Non-Profit for the Homeless that is

different than anything else around, one that actually HELPS the

Homeless, and prevent them from having to go through the endless

nightmare I have been forced to endure for so long?

A place that teaches LIFE Skills to people; Good Hygiene, Basic

Cooking Skills, Teach them how to Respect themselves

and others, How to open a Checking and Savings Account,

How to grocery shop, how to communicate with others,

and Lift others up, instead of kicking them further

into the curb. A place that actually cares about people.

Not a place that treats them as criminals for not 

having a home, and not mired in the red tape swamp

of bureaucratic muck to receive the most dismal of

"services" that is meant more for the facility and 

their overhead than in the assistance people

living on the streets need.  Really need.

A place with hot showers, hot meals, a listening ear,

laundry services, and a place to offer a reprieve from the

elements, even for a short while. A place where people

are seen and treated as people... not property, not things,

but living, breathing, human beings that have talents

and gifts to share with the world.

Perhaps that is the reason for my Longest Year. What my life,

and all my experiences since birth has been about.

The Longest Year... A Lifetime without end.

2019 In Closing

2019 In Closing...

Another year coming to a close and another one about to begin.

This year has been overfilled and overflowing with devastating blows,

and one of the hardest to bare, especially in terms physically.

Deep into my 20^th Winter and Holiday Season outside.

Each day becoming more of a challenge to face and endure.

Food, something that is supposed to bring healing, has been more

damaging than anything else. The healthiest foods becoming the

worst culprits. And made worse when you have no place to go

for rest and allow for healing. Living on the streets means

your body lives and stays in a stressed out place that can never

be at rest. Your body and your life, continually unsettled.

20 FULL Seasons of not being able to eat reguarly, or properly.

Of not being able to rest, to heal, to BE. Of having nowhere to

go, no bed to sleep on, no kitchen to store, prepare and cook

real food. Your life and health are always being heavily

compromised because of it. Being exposed to

everything 24/7, builds your immunity to some regard,

while at the same time, destroying you completely.

They say “Time Heals All Wounds...”, but I have found the

opposite to be true, that the more TIME I am forced to

live, or merely exist in any sense of Life, outside without a home,

the more damage results. My body more of a vestige relic

of what no longer is. Shelled out and gutted...

Being lied to by all these various “Support” agencies, claiming

they are there to help and support the Homeless... claiming

they have the resources and expereince to help, yet continually

refusing the help they claim to offer for not being their

stereo-typical Homeless person that is always

projected, but does not portray the reality of.

Filling my head with empty promises, my heart with false hope,

with endless words with no meaning, while making

fabricated claims of all they will do, and how they will help

support me to move into more of the actual LIVING part of Life.

My heart sinking deeper in the empty hollowness each passing

moment I am forced to live on the outskirts of life itself.

As the weeks, months, years and decades go by with

increasing speed, I remain on the sidelines watching

and witnessing every moment of life fade in the

distance. As time moves forward, life is supposed

to be getting better, not worse. But life is

moving in reverse and getting worse as more

time passes, when you live on the streets.

Living on the streets changes you in so many ways,

and in ways you can never imagine. My life from before,

has long since ceased to exit. Has become more a figment

of imagination that is blurred and distorted, like a burned

photograph pulled from the ashes....you can no longer

tell what the image had been. Or from when.

2019 has truly been one of the WORST years I have

expereinced, and one I am glad to close and shut forever.

Not a year I will hold fondly in memory, and hoping to erase

it completely. Trying to find little flickers of Hope, of

Faith, of some semblance of MEANING and I am

coming up emtpy. Losing Hold of the WHY.

The Street Pantry

The Street Pantry...

Life offers up many lessons. Most of which are not

ones we would choose to learn, if given the choice.

Life throws many cruel bends along with some

uplifiting moments, though, the former has

predominated my entire life.

Being forced to live the greater portion of

my life on the streets has not

only offered up too many lessons to count,

these lessons have been shoved hard down

my throat for 2 decades.

But street life has taught me how to

improvise and improve, re-using and re-cycling

my way through life every moment of the day.

Some of the lessons learned were the results of

just doing.... like teaching myself how to cook

without a kitchen, how to make great coffee without a

coffee maker or pot. How to sleep or rest, lightly,

no matter where I am. I have learned how to stay warm on

the coldest nights. I have learned there is free phone service

that allows you to talk, text and receive voice mails by using wi-fi.

I have learned to find pockets, nooks and crannies

of Nature that are the best spots for quiet, solitude

and for just BEING.

I have learned the fine art of disappearing in plain sight and

becoming part of the landscape itself.

I have learned that people only value those who have homes,

while discarding those of us without one, regardless

of the reasons.

I have learned to stop reaching out to connect with others.

I have learned people show their true colors to those

without the luxury of a home, colors that I wish I never saw

or had to expereince. I have learned that friendship that had

been present before you were on the streets are no longer there

once you are, they tell you they want nothing to do with you.

Yeah, that is really a true friend, there!!

I have learned that people will and do make immediate snap

judgements about another person's circumstance based

solely on their opinion, not on fact. Making

erroneous assumptions of your habits, of who you are

as a person, how you came to be where you are, and so forth

just because you do not have that luxury of a safe, solid

roof over your head come nightfall.

I have learned a million things and more living on

the streets. Things that can never and will never be

taught in schools. I have never really“learned” anything

in school, other than going to class after class that served

absolutely no purpose in the reality of LIFE.

And nothing prepares you for life on the streets.

Even living on the streets itself...and being fully immersed in it.

School never taught LIFE Skills.

No skills that actually

MATTER.

And nothing useful, just damaging labels for not conforming

to their way, to their thinking and Really nothing

learned in school can be applied to real life, in any regard.

School was just a jail sentence that all

kids were forced to endure for at least a dozen

years. Imprisioned for no other reason than

the age we were.

But the Life SKILLS that street life teaches you are not

ones you can list on a resume, though immeasurable, because

all employers want to see are what you did in School and

what GRADES you received.

But they do not want to know anything else.

School and grades tell abosutely NOTHING about the person,

what their skills are or what they can contribute.

But still, kids are forced to go to school.

What is the point in school, when it serves no useful purpose?

Just required to serve your sentence. School does

nothing to prepare you for Life, in any regard. And they

teach more about Flowers and Trees, than they do

about personal biology.

Getting sucked into the Vortex of Street life...

(becomes) a No man's land while becoming

every man's and woman's Domain. Reaching the

Dead End of Life and the Black Hole of Society...

Social Interaction, (Living) a life of meaning and

purpose all but obliterated.

Learing to Re-Use and Re-Purpose your life everyday,

every moment. Remembering to B R E A T H E and

keep moving forward or life ceases to be.