"All events are true based on how I remember & interpret
them, though names have been changed. The facts and opinions I talk
about regarding these issues are typically well researched and not
written lightly on, without much thought and consideration. These blogs
are drafts that will be gone over in time when compiled into the
book. They are being posted now to promote the issues "now" and to get
feed back from those who wish to help in the process. Just because you
are tagged in them I do not expect you will always have the time to
read or keep up with them, so please don't feel obligated to. I expect
some if not many grammatical and spelling errors. Other than that
please feel free to give me feed back whither, positive or critical. I
need both! Either with my writing style, ethical principles or
philosophical interpretations. Some of the issues I discuss involve
walking a fine line between respecting certain views in several subject
areas and challenging them and the status-quo... I'm trying to walk it
the best I can. Thank you!
Day 1 of "Mission: Going Homeless"
It almost didn't happen. Plagued by a swarm of emotional issues resulting to a breakdown led on by any of the number of issues facing me lately...Either the meditation that's been releasing up my unconscious that I've pushed down and numbed for so long...forcing me to face them and deal with them Or my predestination for anixity, and swings of emotional highs and lows, aka bi-polarness. Or the fact I actually am facing serious debt and maybe on the verge of bankruptcy caused by my efforts, passions an ultimately my somewhat failed attempts in starting my ventures and working towards my passions....You know I don't know if I believe in God or not...but it seems like life can often times be ironic. During the time in my life when I sought to do one of the biggest and boldest attempts in my life as far as becoming homeless and making a difference through it for others. It seems like its my only option...that in a weird way I actually need it....I need it more than I could ever plan to give to the program...Which was the plan. The saying "People make plans and God laughs" holds true...at least in fact that things mess up...success isn't a strait arrow path. It's a jumbled up mess of scribble lines. As I sit there eyes still puffed up and red from the emotional drain I had, phone still in hand from speaking with my meditation teacher, I felt refreshed...Still drained but drained clean. I felt I could do it...I felt I would rather go to the shelter than sit isolated in my room. I looked around the room and grabbed several of the books and magazines Im in the middle off to take with me. One of the books being "Black Like Me" a documentary about a caucasian gentlemen who became a blackman in the deep south of the 1950 segregation. This books was given to me in hopes that I could get something from his story...That I could pull from his experience of diving head first into a world not known by many others on the outside looking in, if they even take a look...because it's to hard to look at...even when you;re the one on the inside up to your ears in it. The one difference though is that is not new for me...I've been homeless before. I've spent my time...close to half my life at the bottom of the barrel...moving in an out of treatment centers and jails and JDC...The only difference this time is I'm not as numb. I'm looking at it through new perspectives. A higher level of awareness and enlightenment. I can only imagine how this will turn out this time around. A beautiful quote that I've found to be sooo true says "Research is the art of not knowing what one is doing" So in the spirit of "Just go with it" and Giving it to a God that may or may not be there. I walk. I walk the several blocks It takes to get there. The air is cold and damp, cars with people pass but I barely notice...I couldn't even tell you were my mind was...except for a million different places. As I get close to the shelter I see a man...who I'll get to know a little better later, we'll just call him Allan. Allan is kissing his girlfriend good by. Apparently Today was here birthday. As I head in the first thing that hits me is the light...the bright lights of the building...It paralyzes me for a second...until I notice the Two Jolly ladies that are working at the desk wile a black gentlemen in factory style clothing is sitting at a table drinking coffee with them carrying on what appeared to be a fun and pleasant conversation....I don't know about other shelters. But what I've notice about the one in Mattoon is that on the surface the people who stay there often times do not appear to be that upset. The setting is not as gloomy as one thinks or it appears in the movies. No, the darkness and gloominess is often hidden from the faces. It's in the depths and recesses of their minds. It's in all our minds..."Hello!" "How may I help you?" says the Jollier bigger lady. "I'm here to get registered for the night" I say. "Oh, okay sweetie just pull up a chair" I grab one the old familiar brown metal chairs I've seen so often in the past...Thinking to my self it's been a while since I've had to do one of these, feel out an intake sheet that is. It's a little weird being back on the other side of the desk. My Journey from being in the shelter my first time from now it's great successes, achievements too the failures I've come to know that are apart of it, have led me back full circle. I've heard success offten put is two steps forward and one step back. She takes me through the familiar questions I came to know as a volunteer there after my first departure of being homeless. "Have you been here before?" "Yes." "What is the reason for you being here?" At the moment I didn't feel like explaining the full situation knowing that part of my mission is to be incognito I say "in sufficient funds" Which is true still non the less. "How long do you plan on staying here?" "Indefinitely." I say. It takes us about 10 minutes to go through the full intake. And after singing my name to a life I'm now committed to for the next several months I am now officially registered homeless. I pick up my backpack of books and mags and head to the back of the building to find my cot for the night. It's a small group here tonight about 6 of us total 5 men and 1 women. When I reach the back there is only one gentlemen laying down. He is texting someone...maybe his wife indicated by the ring on his finger. I ask him which bed are available, hoping to get one by the wall..."Nope, those are taken" he says. So I opt out for one in the middle. I grab my sheets and proceed to "make my bed and lay in it" as the expression goes and adds a literal since to it. I feel to emotionally drained to make an effort in getting to know any of the people tonight. I try and just rest in the fact that I made it up here..maybe in broken pieces...But up here non the less. It makes me think about the saying "When things seem to be falling apart...maybe...Just maybe they're falling into place." Man have I've been waiting for that. "It's been hard not to be so pessimistic lately. It seems that all I see when I look around is pain and struggling and my ineffectiveness to do anything about it. Both within my self and of the world. To know how far I've come and what I'm am capable of...but that it's lead to no avail. That it seems I've given everything I've had emotionally, physically and mentally. But it's not enough...I'm not enough. That all my preaching on positivity and pushing forward or null words that are lies. I fear that I can't help no one because I can't even help myself. That for as much effort I put into to trying to better my self or others there is a stronger force stops me...is it a loving god trying to strengthen me? Is it a cosmic darkness that wants to see me fail? Or is it just me and whatever that means? After a cigarette I crawl into the bed for the night. So exhausted that the hard plastic feels oh so welcoming. At least they're not as bad as the ones I've slept on in jail or the Juvenile detention centers. I pick up my book "Black Like Me" and begin to read until I slowly drift off to sleep...kind of. It's more like a half asleep half awake trance. My head playing tricks on me. Moving into dreams of a life of possibilities well lived and spent in the shelter and the reality of me being there. It becomes hard to tell whats real and whats not. But all I can do is just be there. Just be present and accept whatever comes. I finally awake about 4:50 something. The gentlemen on my left is getting ready to take a shower...maybe that's what woke me up? Jim, the guy that works there 3rd shift who've I've known from my years of volunteering comes back and pats me on the back. I know wondering...what's he doing here? I merely give him a nod and a quite "high" and leave it at that. He accepts this not wanting to push anything further at the moment and lets me be and heads back up front. It's quite now, quite enough to meditate. And as I do my meditation teacher's words start playing in my head from the night before. "Sometimes if meditation is bringing up more than you can handle you might need to take a break from it" But all I can do is push forward. It's that or death for me. Ding.....the buzzer on my phone goes off letting me know it's been twenty minutes. It's still kind of dark in the back but I'm ready to get up. I look forward to talking with Jim and some of my other new found acquaintances. Jim of coarse asks the questions that I knew would be coming and I tell him the short version of what the project is. And satisfied by that we catch up on old times about the place. I start to interact with the group of guys and one lady who is currently calling the shelter home. It turns out we have good group. No trouble makers and for the most part all relatively happy.... on the outside at least. The lady and I hit it off pretty good with some pretty intellectual conversations about meditation, science and religion. Some of the others there though feel she is crazy...indicated by the circling of the finger to the head when I was speaking with her. Though I did find here to be disturbed, especially when it came to the topic of religion and science...more explicitly the church of Scientology. I found her to be open at least or was at one point to possibilities and that for the most part she had some insights as well as some damage done. Maybe there is still hope for her. Whatever that means to her. And that's what it's about. Working together realizing that we are all broken in so many ways. That we can all learn together. To accept where we are in life and try and move forward to together.
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