Hey - How's it goin?

 

Oh, you know how it is,... it's goin

Yeah, life can get ya down, that's for darn sure.

Right now I am living in a woman's homeless shelter and as much as I'm so VERY grateful to have a roof over my head and a bed to sleep in, it's a tough situation. I am still looking for work and have literally made looking for employment a full time job. Seven days a week I put in as much time as I can applying for jobs online and when I have enough gas in my car, (which isn't often), I apply for jobs in person or check up on jobs I've already applied for. 

Then after the hunt for work I have to apply for housing as I only have 90 days at this shelter. I'm at the halfway mark now, (the clock is tickin!). These crappy economic times are scary for the homeless population, especially the clean and sober, "never been faced with this kinda thing" homeless person.

I share quarters at the shelter with women who never in their wildest dreams thought they'd be where they are and I'm one of them! It was NEVER supposed to be like this for me, not at 55 years old. I envisioned myself content and comfy in my life tending to my garden and spoiling the grandkids - NOT passing out my job resume like a flyer to anyone who'll takeit and wondering if I'll be back living in my car come spring.

~ Home Is Where The Heart Is ~

Being homeless is the loneliest place to be. 

No matter how many people you might be surrounded by in the shelters, it's an isolated journey and the phrase, "Man without a country" comes to mind for me. The reasons we end up homeless are daunting. Racking us with guilt and worry we wrestle with our major fail while at the same time trying to salvage what tattered shreds of dignity we may have left. Once we accept our homeless fate and begin to asses what our chances are in regaining the safe haven of having our own home again we get smacked upside the head with the reality of just how impotent are economy really is. As excruciatingly cruel as it feels, we end up being the people that society doesn't want to see, talk about or even know about.

 Most folks view the homeless as dirty, stinky drunks and druggies with no more ambition than to stand outside businesses bugging the working class for their spare change.  Truth is that the majority of the clean and sober homeless have cars and even jobs. People look stunned, their mouths dropping open like cod fish when I tell them I'm homeless. They can't seem to grasp how something like that could happen to someone as intelligent and "together" as me. They struggle with words of comfort to offer and usually end up saying all the wrong things. Then they come up missing in my life.

 "Out of sight, out of mind", I guess.

I have another blog that is dedicated to the plight of the homeless, (Project Homeless), so I won't be sharing a lot about my homelessness here, but it does shadow my days, casting a heaviness over me that sucks the life out of my writing muse making it difficult to be lighthearted or even funny. I do have times at the shelter that are quite comical in those awkward ironic ways that life can be.

I had one gal at the shelter accuse me of being "bossy".

BOSSY? ME? No way,.......

I took offense to her assessment of me but then another woman piped up in my defense, (I guess), and said I wasn't bossy as much as I'm more of a "Mother Hen".

I have to admit, she's right, I am.

Maybe it's because I raised 5 kids or that I just have a need to know everything that's happening around me but I am the first one to remind the gals at the shelter to have their beds made before noon or that there's no TV allowed till after 4pm but I'm also the first one to ask how things are going, offering up pep talks and genuine hugs when they're feeling down.

Just like everything else that's happened in my life I always take to it with an exploring eye - I study this experience of my homelessness like Jacques Cousteau might study a pod of humpback whale in migration. I take mental notes, pondering the reasons that be, questioning the theories and then study the options. 

Being homeless is certainly not the worst thing that's taken place in my life but it is the most exasperating in that once you're homeless there are no easy ways out, no low road to get to the high road and not too many resources to help you build a foundation of faith and security.

 A slippery slope for sure.