{"id":23568,"date":"2019-04-18T12:34:38","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23568"},"modified":"2019-04-18T12:34:47","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:34:47","slug":"homeless-but-happy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/homeless-but-happy-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Homeless But Happy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Part 8<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surrounded by volumes of every topic\nimaginable, I\u2019m here in the central hub of our library researching and working\nthrough my various thoughts by writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As my journey, my celebration of life,\ncontinues, the more I open up to people around me I find I\u2019m not alone, of\ncourse, and I feel less alone in my homelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m no longer afraid of the nights turning\ninto days, of being lost, or what to do with my day as it begins. I\u2019ve rested\nmy mind to just accept each day as a reward of life and I must be the best I\ncan be to live it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have so been blessed in the knowledge of\nsharing my experience with a new network of people and their ideas, thoughts\nand guidance to care for me; is a tremendous uplift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My homeless but happy memories endure with\nthe laughter at this table. We all dine together at the church dinners and\nlunches and not only have we become good acquaintances we have become a group\nof multi diverse thinkers, free spirits, environmentalists, political\nactivists, nutritional health and wellness advocates, authors, artists, poets,\nteachers, and friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If one of us is missing at the table we\nall grow concerned and look forward to seeing them at their next social visit,\nas if a sister, brother, parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or cousin has\ndropped by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussions of life centre on both\nprofessionals and retired professionals including everyday people of all\ndiversities. Everything at the table is celebrated from who is reading a good\nbook, a visit from a loved one story, a funny \u201coh lord, why me?\u201d moment, a pet\ndoing a strange human-like reaction, onward to a great recipe, who is getting\nmarried and the passing of a lovely soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I absorb these interesting conversations\nas a flower wanting water to bloom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel at any moment my turning point, my\nepiphany, and my direction will finally come and I can be free of my burdens\nand release my truer self into the world again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve met more homeless people who have\nrecovered from homelessness and their stories are equally traumatic, but\nfinally resolved, with their very own new surroundings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have walls to\nhang paintings or posters on, couches to sit on and watch a movie, a kettle to\nboil water for a cup of tea, a closet to hang up their clothes and a restful\nbed to get a good night\u2019s sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have their identity, it has come back\nto them and it\u2019s called home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want that too, yet I\u2019m very happy for\nthem. I\u2019m more sensitive to everything around me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes my hardest moments are the\nstories I hear at the library. Without trying to listen, you cannot help but\nlisten, as the conversations are right next to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite its being distracting, it also\nsometimes silently hurts my heart, and tears at times start to well up that I\ntry to hide. I hear their travel news of vacations to exotic fun in the sun\ngetaways, and I so badly want to go discover some tropical oasis myself. Next\nto me, I hear this lovely couple wanting to move to Niagara-on-the-Lake after retiring\nfrom successful careers and buying another dream home when I have no home to\ncall my own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are young parents chasing their\nsmall children and I hear the laughter of their innocent voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I notice their tiny steps holding books\nbigger than themselves and I so want to start over again and be small and not\nmake any mistakes. I see the young high school students doing their homework\nand I wonder if I could go back, would I have a chosen a different career?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do realize one day soon I shall have all this again. Regardless, this\nis my chapter of my life\u2019s present journey of being Homeless but Happy.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part 8 Surrounded by volumes of every topic imaginable, I\u2019m here in the central hub of our library researching and working through my various thoughts by writing. As my journey, my celebration of life, continues, the more I open up to people around me I find I\u2019m not alone, of course, and I feel less […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-688","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 13:51:48","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\/23568","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=23568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}