{"id":22268,"date":"2018-11-22T10:27:48","date_gmt":"2018-11-22T15:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22268"},"modified":"2018-11-22T10:27:48","modified_gmt":"2018-11-22T15:27:48","slug":"homeless-but-happy-part-3-of-a-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/homeless-but-happy-part-3-of-a-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Homeless But Happy (Part 3 of a Series)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Special to The Auroran<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is something to be said about freedom. Presently I have a lot.
\nTo breathe clean air is a freedom, to vote for your principles and elect a party or person is a freedom, and importantly the freedom of speech, as long as it communicates a valued idea or thought without harm to anyone around you. Freedom to express, using the wonderments of words, and sentences to articulate and educate others this discovery into my world of a non-fiction lifestyle.
\nI share a piece of my heart, in trying to make sense of my homelessness.
\nI am a morning cup of coffee pouring into a mug half-filled with hope, or half-empty from abandonment yet full of taste in my desires to see this world of ours differently. I savor this knowledge from the new people I meet, and the moments around me as a confirmation that life will go on.
\nI will not be bitter – grounds left and cast away. In this cup of me, I can make my own schedule. I\u2019m very disciplined to rise early and have a plan of action for the day. I try to be active taking pleasing walks on the trails and educate myself with something new.
\nReading the daily news seems more depressing then my current fate.
\nA recent first snowfall touching the ground to blanket us in a white shroud terrified me to think, I could become a petrified frozen artifact. Frozen in time some of us are just that; a sad reminder of lost souls with no home.
\nWe become lucky and grateful to find a temporary space to stay somewhere in from the cold. I double layer myself in clothes enough to look professional, but I know now what cold really feels like.
\nCold sets into your bones and in some cases, it will chill your heart.
\nI won\u2019t let that happen to me.
\nI won\u2019t let my heart that is so filled with love and kindness become numb, distant and unfeeling to others.
\nThe biting temperatures outside guide me to the library once again, my sanctuary. I sit staring at the computer screen in the library – the wonderfully warm library trying to resume the rewrite of my life into perfection, but I cannot find the words.
\nThese words come easier here.
\nThe resume, the accumulation of skills, my skill is surviving right now.
\nI\u2019m frightened to admit being homeless. It is a statement you cannot place on a resume. I keep rewriting the resume reconstructing the theory of my relativity. It took Einstein a while and so it will take me. I stop staring at the screen for a moment and remind myself I\u2019m an inch away from a shelter.
\nI imagine the poorhouse debtors\u2019 prisons from Charles Dickens in squalid conditions and diseases waiting to consume what\u2019s left of me. However, in today\u2019s standards they are still for the poor, but are pleasant; designed to look less a contrast that Charles Dickens referred to, and more perhaps unobtrusive to society.
\nIsn\u2019t that what most of the \u201chaves\u201d want, to not really look upon us, to step over us, forget us except those few kind-hearted people and our local church charities? God Bless them. Without this service they provide there would be less of us wanting to keep going on in life.
\nLast week I was blessed to receive a ticket to a wonderful evening gospel concert. The music filled the church with the songs of an angelic choir accompanying the husband and wife musicians from British Columbia.
\nCultural gatherings are still the moments I most enjoy. I blend into this painting of unity. I attended for the first time the \u201ccommunity caf\u00e9\u201d run by young adults with disabilities accompanied by their staff and volunteers.
\nI was privileged to share in conversations sitting with friends. I would observe the genuine hospitality of this room filled with happiness. I felt worthy. I have listened to many unusual stories that have come my way recently, and some are heart wrenching.
\nA complete stranger spoke about himself. Then offered to let me borrow his car if I needed too.
\nA very decent unselfish gesture from a man undergoing constant medical treatments.
\nInstead I offered to drive him where ever he needs to go.
\nThis is why I still believe in humanity.
\nI\u2019m homeless but happy on this journey. The reality is, I don\u2019t think, that people in general really understand homelessness. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Special to The Auroran There is something to be said about freedom. Presently I have a lot. To breathe clean air is a freedom, to vote for your principles and elect a party or person is a freedom, and importantly the freedom of speech, as long as it communicates a valued idea or thought without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5Na","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-26 01:31:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}