Post-Homeless Diaries: Ep 1

Post-Homelessness Diaries

This very morning is the first time in exactly 126 days, that I have woken up on my own bed.

It’s not the bed I had slept in since the beginning of my teen years,

And it doesn’t have the firetruck-red bedding and silky black pillowcases I spent hours picking out,

Nor the chipped beige walls I remember,

Or the faint smell of dust—

But the sun still leaks through the blinds the way it once did at home.

It’s an uncanny sort of familiar. It’s not exactly normal, but it’s the closest thing to normal that I’ve experienced since I fell homeless on my 15th birthday. I’m not used to it at all.

 After 4 months, the homeless shelters became my normal. I knew every song and dance. Giving up all of my sharps and valuables that had to be tucked away in a safe in the office, talking to Ministry workers every day, scrambling to hide food when staff came in so they wouldn’t catch me eating on the couch, signing myself in and out of the building and waiting to be buzzed in, pocket checks upon entry, waking up to blaring alarms at 1 in the morning because someone accidentally triggered security measures, going an entire day without food because I didn’t want to talk to the workers… I’m still expecting all of these things, and I can’t wrap my head around the fact that these are not aspects of my life anymore.

I can go for a walk at 3AM if I want! I can get a midnight snack and eat it on the couch! I can have my TV at max volume and watch whatever the hell I want! I can leave my belongings wherever without a strange staff member passive aggressively returning it to me!

Most importantly, I don’t have to worry about where I’ll be sleeping when the weeks over.

Never again will I be forced to lose my home, my brothers, everything I own, or my pets. And NEVER AGAIN will I be forced to lose all four.

Signing out