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.

Hero's

Hero's On the Streets....

You encounter all walks of life on the street.... when you live on the streets;

you notice more, experience more, witness more than most people ever will in their lives.

A Tale of Two Cities comes to mind… “It was the Best of Times, It was the Worst of Times...”…

But when you live on the streets, the best is no longer available to you. And it becomes

much more than a “Tale of Two Cities...”… it becomes numerous cities, too many to count,

and where there is a never-ending stream of Tales to tell; tales that devastate,

mesmerize, lift, brighten, and shatter your life in so many ways.

I've found that when you really need something, it is those living on the streets

that are willing to share and help however they can. The ones who experience

life on the barest fringes of living are the most helpful and giving.

Hero's, everyday folks, living without a home. Some of the truest hero's you will ever meet.

Life is not supposed to be defeating.... it's meant to uplift and inspire. But when you live

on the Streets, life pummels you to a pulp, pummeling the very life out of you.

That is where the true hero's shine through. People who can really relate to the Blessings and

Challenges one faces without a home.... without a place to get much needed rest.... but rather,

nights that are continually disturbed, having no place to store, prepare or cook meals,

having absolutely no privacy at any point when you have no home.

When you are fully present, but invisible to the Main Streams of Society... you learn the

fine art of disappearing in plain sight. And it becomes the Homeless's super powers.

Blending into the Scenery so well, we become part of the landscape and are

no longer seen as living, feeling, breathing beings.

Homeless know where other Homeless are...

but we are non-existent to the masses.

And thereby, unseen, disappearing in plain sight.

Becoming witnesses of everything; Some good, a whole lot of bad, and 

everything in between is what you experience living on the streets… that holds for

Law Enforcement, as well. You will experience some good, some truly bad,

and a lot of everything in between. How they act and respond toward you

tells you a whole lot of who they are as a person.

And a few select individuals in Law Enforcement become Hero's to those of us on the streets.

I have experienced a few of these Hero's in Law Enforcement, very few, to be sure,

but a few nonetheless, who have made life, my life, on the streets much more

tolerable by paying for services and products that I could not have afforded or

taken care of otherwise. Things that help to get me on my way. And when you are 

forced into a circumstance not of your choosing, and have limited or no income, 

getting even the necessary things for everyday living; soap, shampoo, food, 

clothing, bedding… fuel, supplies, things most people take for granted, 

that are not readily available to you when you have no home

and need to get these items, and find some way to carry them, day-in, day-out 

to use wherever you go, because you never know where you will be 

from one moment from the next.

Every once in while you will encounter a Hero that takes the time to listen and offer 

whatever support they are able to. Perhaps that is just to take the time to greet you 

with a “Hi, how are you?” and actually mean it and want to hear your answer.

They take the time to understand how you came to live without a home, 

and especially living without a home for so long.

So here’s to all the Hero’s who bring Humanity to the forefront.

They lift the ceaseless shadows for a brief moment, allow the

light to filter through the darkness.

Life Happens...

Life Happens....

Life happens..... some good, some very, very bad. And sometimes, things fall in between.

I often wonder what my life would have been like if I had been welcome, instead of discarded.

Having a life that actually matters, one that I was wanted right from the start.... but life,

my life, did not start that way. Just the opposite. My life never should have been, my

birth should have never happened. But unfortunately, it did, and I am left forever

picking up the pieces left behind and discarded since. I know people

(Mistakenly believing we were friends, only to find I was nothing more than

a circumstance to them) whose lives have been deeply blessed every step of the way....

having multiple homes in different countries, travel the world over, many times over,

spending weeks and months on end at various places.

Their kids literally growing up on airplanes.

And then there are ones like me...... my life could not be more different in contrast.

Blessed rarely, having more bad luck than anything else in life. What would life have

been like if I had been treated as a friend, on a personal level, instead of just the

debris cast to the wayside and seen as only a circumstance and not a living,

breathing, feeling person???? How different would things be?

Would life hold any meaning? Would I want to be here???

Would life hold joy and love????

Things that have never been a part of my life that I can ever recall,

not in any meaningful way. Having a life where you are never once accepted

for who you are, as you are, not welcome wherever you go. I am making the best of a

bad situation I was forced into, time and again.

And no matter what I do, I am criticized, ridiculed, made fun of, laughed at., mocked.

And I wonder, time and again, why am I here??? To serve what purpose?

A Life punishment..... living on the streets, my life..... so really, what is the point?

Being sentenced for a crime you never committed.

I have died a million times over on the streets, and died a different kind of death

when I was forced to live my life on the streets. With a body that has continually and

completely turned against itself at every moment of my life, a life that is not worth the

mere existence it has become. My life and body has always felt like a cruel Joke of the

Universe, straight from God. A punishing curse than anything to cherish and be truly

grateful for. Living in excruciating pain every day of my life, my body never once working

like it is “supposed” to. Never once functioned like the books say it should. It does its own

thing with little regard to being attached to me. And the endless pain and grief that it has

wrought in its wake. Living in pain, barely existing around the edges of life...

Never once did I ever think or believe my life would be taken from me, eviscerated

of all that matters, then cast to the debris left behind in Humanity's wake.

But having spent nearly half my life, in the barest form of existence, on the streets....

life has changed in every way, means something entirely different when it is lived without a home,

or the comforts and security that affords. Time shifts, changes, and morphs into extending without end. 

 Days go by without realizing one has changed into the next..... years flash by without warning.

Time is lost track of, brought back, and lost again. Dates have no meaning,

as one is the same as the next, and the ones before.

The context of life takes on different textures and feels on the streets, that cannot be

experienced anywhere else. Life tastes different, looks different, feels different on the streets.

It changes you in ways you could never dream of, seeps so deeply and indelibly in and

through your entire being, and every cell and atom in your body.

Changes you in ways that cannot be erased.

Images burned into your vision that cannot be changed.

Experiencing things in life that would make the most hardened criminal flinch,

and yet it becomes second nature to those of us living without a home.

It is truly amazing what your body and mind become used to, just by being

exposed to, it time and again. And it becomes part of your life, and who you are as a person.

Living on the streets changes how you approach life, how you react, what you do...

in every way. It changes how you breathe, how you eat, how you sleep, how you clean up.

There is no part of your life unchanged from life on the streets.

Life on the Streets.... Detracts from Living.

An Existence on the Streets... My 17th Anniversary Outside

An Existence on the Streets….

My 17^th Anniversary being outside..

Where there should have never been a single anniversary to face living
on the streets,  today marks my 17^th anniversary of life on the streets.

A mere existence...and wondering how I still find myself breathing, as such as it is.

As I am Heading into my 18^th Holiday Season, and just faced my 16^th Birthday, alone,

on the streets.  Hope; I have no idea what that is anymore.  Faith…. What exactly is that?

Love, does it even exist in this world so filled with violence and hate?

Faith, Hope, Love…. Supposed to be the most natural things in the world….

Become the most unnatural in life.  How do you experience things that do not exist in your life?

Life on the streets… becomes an interminable darkness that fills your heart. 

There is no light at the end of the tunnel…. There is no end to the tunnel.  Your life, your heart and very soul are changed in ways that can never be undone.  A permanent shadow settles over your heart that overshadows
everything else. If everyone working in these so-called places of “assistance” were forced to live on the streets
for even a few days for training, the services and help that those of us out here are denied and refused because we do not fit the role of the stereotype of what a homeless person is supposed to look like, smell and behave like…. There would not be a homeless problem to begin with. And those who actually need the help and assistance would finally receive it. But unfortunately, that is not the way they are trained.  So they impose these “standards of requirements”
for help available for those on the streets. The only way to receive any assistance at all is to
fall into the parameters of substance abuse, alcoholism, smoking, addictions,

having dependent children, be an illegal immigrant or be seniors….

And when you are clean, and do not have any life destroying habits, there is no help at all. 

That is why I am still on the streets after 17 long years…. Still struggling just to survive day by day,
moment by moment. That is why Hope, Faith and Love are not around in my life…..

   I have no hope that I will ever see a roof over my head again, 

not in the truest sense of that word, a real home.

Days and nights have come to be dreaded…. Settling over you like a shroud that cannot be lifted.

The heavy, sludgy stagnant air of the summers are impossible to be in, and made even worse by the
smokers who come right next to you, lighting up and making it impossible to breathe by imposing
their filthy, nasty habit on all around. Giving absolutely no thought or consideration how
their habit affects everyone around them. And when you are extremely allergic to that crap,

smokers make life absolutely miserable for those of us forced to live life on the

streets, lighting up anywhere and everywhere.  Whether they are homeless, or have homes.

I would so love to have them feel what it is like not being able to breathe because someone else imposes
their habit on them, have them feel what it is like having their chest tighten, their lungs burn and constrict
and their throat closing off because of someone else’s nasty habit they force on you…. Perhaps if they were
finally on the receiving end of their filthy habit, they would not be so quick to force that crap down everyone’s
throats.  And most of these people work in healthcare or food service…. Where it literally makes things worse all around. Smokers end up causing more harm than doing any good.  Having your food prepared by a smoker, those nasty fumes infuse the food with the worst flavor in the world, making you ill from it, and in healthcare, you cannot breathe because of someone  else’s habit because the fumes that cling to them tighter than saran wrap..

Smokers believe that once they put out the cigarette, that no one can tell they smoke….

And if you are a smoker, you cannot.  And they do not believe that their filthy, nasty

cloud of fumes even exist.  But when you not only do not smoke, but are extremely

allergic to it….. the fumes come through continuously.  A smell that is ever present and
never goes away once it is there. It makes no difference how long in between cigarettes….. 

  the smell and the fumes are a  permanent fixture, that can never be removed.

Smokers are just one of the many hazards those of us on the street have to face….

Even worse, when those smokers live on the streets, you cannot escape from it. But certainly

one of the absolute worst things we are forced to endure.  Everything else falls to second place and further. 
But smokers top the list destroying our lives. Having our lives and health completely disregarded
by smokers, and by people, overall.  Since homeless have no place to go to get away

from smokers, it matters not where we go, because smokers are everywhere

and growing in numbers more and more.

If you need to go to the store for any necessity, smokers are right at the door, they stand

right outside the door, while their nasty habit fills the store and you are forced to walk through the
cloudy fumes of their habit, leaving it clinging to you…. I would love to live and be able to breathe
fresh, clean air…. But there is no clean fresh air, with so many smokers the world over.

Breathing becomes another challenge to endure. But just another day to endure on the streets.

So the toll of living on the streets is multi-fold. Everyday, the toll rises higher, and the challenges become
greater the longer you are forced to live without the substance of life. 

As Life becomes nothing more than a moot point of existence.