April has been bitter cold, I woke up early this morning in so much pain and it was so cold, I usually stay awake through the late night and sleep through the late morning, it's safer. Anxiety at 3am keeps me awake at night, but it was so cold this morning I wasn't going to sleep the morning away but had to get up with the sunrise. I do like a nice sunrise, but cursing that I was so cold was not how I wanted to wake up to the beautiful sunrise—Fuck! not too zen of me, but then again I'm not yet finding the Zen in being homeless—it's a struggle. I like to think of myself as somewhat of a practicing Yogini, but having to put my practice to the test this close to the bone is not what I wanted to be doing at midlife. I did not think of myself as THAT spiritual. I laugh because I do know being spiritual does come with success, money, and the things we want, I have had that kind of success from doing what you love and things work out, but I know in my heart that's not often how it goes. Just like a child, I want it both ways, but the adult me knows also from experience that as we continue the journey the tests if you will become harder as we get those things we want only to relinquish them—so how spiritual are you really? I know the real blessings, light and love come after doing what we said we never could, finding our way through dark darkness, as Florence + The Machine says "every demon wants his pound of flesh"—enough with the demons send in the Angels—please. This time it seems so very much harder, but then again it always does.
I mumbled to myself as I walked up the street to get coffee, yes talking to myself because being told this means I'm mentally ill confirms it by the cops who continually taunt me. I checked recently and talking to yourself is not a sign of mental health issues. This is the reason Cops should not be tasked with someone having a mental health crisis. I'm on this mission to clear my name these days, some days it goes well and other days it's hard to accept something while simultaneously confronting it, especially if it's a lie. Reading about how abusers make up allegations of being "crazy" I know I'm not alone, but in my case, my ex got the whole local police department involved. They said things like, "no one is going to help you," and people took sides. Why would my Divorce be some kind of public event, but it is. "Those are all the Divorces that will be taken care of by Fall," the law clerk said as he waved papers in front of me, and then there is your Divorce, he said emphasising "your." I had no idea at the time but thought it only meant that we had quite a few assets and properties and had been married a long time, 20yrs.
Coffee starts to warm my soul and I feel less angry. I'm not one to be angry for long, I don't like to fight and like peace and quiet, not one to be vengeful, it always seemed so much work. I like to move on, let go, and not harbor all that negativity. As a kid, my mother would often say let it go, I used to think it was a nice way to not harbor a grudge, but after years of this, especially when she deliberately did something to me she didn't have to be accountable by saying—just let it go. Recently, after not seeing her for the duration of my marriage, I confronted her about what was going on, still not having all the details. "Just let all go," she says, like those disasters where people watch their house just get swept up in the tornadoes and floods. I looked at her in horror thinking this wasn't a natural disaster but premeditated, planned over a long time, and included much more than material things. Years of her telling me flashed before me as I realized she had been doing this to me for so long and now it had come to some kind of nightmare. Lately, dealing with her I would have to sit down, the room would spin and what she was saying was so awful and made no sense that it forced me to sit down or I would pass out. "Everything belongs to him," "he had all those tenants now," she quipped when she first came to visit me when this all started. I had just gotten some kind of forced settlement from the assigned Lawyer I never picked and my mother already knew what was going on. That was shocking in itself, why did so many people know what was going on, but I didn't. What happened to Divorces being private? I thought, but the spinning would start and I would just have to sit with what was going on, knowing that something was horribly wrong.
I'm starting to thaw, I can feel my fingers starting to tingle. Some nights now it's so cold I don't think I will make it through. I pray to God, I plead, I cry and ask why? all the things people do when they find themselves in situations that they didn't plan on and are like an accident. You wake up in intensive care and someone has to explain what happened, you're just in pain trying to get better and you don't quite know just how bad it is yet. Being told I was now a "homeless prostitute," was like that. The Divorce had not even started and this is what I was being told by people assigned against my will to give all the assets I worked so hard for to my ex. I was often shocked and struggled to understand how these people could think that everything I worked on was 50/50 and there had to be some horrible mistake, being homeless was so far from what my life was like that the spinning would start, a colliding of the realities that people were forced into my life. Homeless? Why would I be homeless I kept thinking, but often as I struggled to go over my assets, my life, what I owned, people would just shake their heads and ignore me or say I didn't understand.
What was there to understand? This was so crazy, so foreign I would go into shock and the room would start to spin. Some of it I'm sure was the fact we moved so much when I was a kid and having a home or nice apartment was a goal for me as a very young girl. After achieving that goal and then some after 20yrs of hard work, being told I was homeless was overwhelming. I kept thinking it was a horrible mistake and people could not possibly believe this. How absurd with all the properties we had, all the properties we worked on together, all the late-night talk of our goals, all the money I invested, all the times I was so frugal and went without things so that it went into our home and vacation property. Then putting up with so much from my inlaws and being told I would have "rental income," from my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law getting her share in the constant babysitting my mother-in-law did for them.
A few paragraphs on the page and I feel like I will survive. This was often how I got through things in my marriage, my writing had become a friend, a muse, the go-to place when things were so bad. I wrote all the time, in the early morning before work, late at night when I could not sleep, all day crying sometimes up to the lake when I was shunned and no one wanted to be my friend. We had purchased the vacation property as soon as we married, but looking back something was always off. Women neighbors picked fights as soon as I arrived. I would often chalk it up to having different social circles, girls can be so nasty in high school, and cliques are common at work too, but these days I know it was all done on purpose. It's still been so hard to reconcile, but then again so many things are these days.
Finally, the sun rays break through the window, its warmth sweeping across the table in ribbons, touching my soul dancing in patterns on the table. Free refills on coffee, something warm to eat and I feel like things will be okay for a little while—I survived another night of bitter cold. I don't so well with the cold, I'm very sensitive to it, which was why having a stable place was so important to me. We often had no heat as a kid, it was awful. I would be dressed in numerous layers, as many blankets as I was given, and shiver all night. It seemed I was always cold growing up. We had much harsher winters back then. Snowbanks all winter long, not like today where it snows for a few days and then disappears. I love the snow, I used to ski and did some snowmobiling, but I had good equipment and always made sure to have heat either in the warming hut, my car, or at home. I've been sleeping in an abandoned house for the past month. I was terrified when this all started, but the worse came true and I'm still alive, making my way—living. The thought of being homeless would make me physically sick, the spinning lasted a long time, I would have to sit down. I had passed out when they forced me into a psych ward claiming I had mental health issues, but it was all lies. It's taken me a while, to incorporate these realities that at first were so alien, so monstrous that they almost killed me. There were days I never thought I would survive the psych ward, it was horrible there, especially because I was not what they were telling me. I was not the perpetrator of abuse but the victim, my mother was the violent one, not me, my ex was alcoholic not me and so it went. I was like Alice in Wonderland, everything had become the opposite. Dorothy in the Land of OZ, I just want to go home and this was certainly not home.
I'm still shivering inside, my throat is scratchy and raw, I worry about Covid, but I know it's my allergies. I use to have allergies as a kid, my mother and I are very different housekeepers and cooks, when I got on my own my allergies stopped, the dampness I hated as a kid is gone, the house not clean unless I cleaned it. I did all the chores and I was always cold. Once I left home, had heat, and could take care of myself, clean, and eat the way I needed the allergies went away. My nose is running now and the allergies are back—sinuses. My bones are achy and painful now. I worry about arthritis. I worry more about my health now in ways I didn't before because I was always doing things to be healthy, but now that's not possible being homeless. I have no Healthcare now. I had been under my ex-husband's policy, but they viciously took that away like so many other things when I wasn't even in court. I was never allowed to use his. Mostly he had me covered in case of something catastrophic, not because he cared, but because he didn't want to be wiped out financially. It made sense at the time, but as the years went by like everything else became just another weapon. I know now he and his friends made trouble at places I worked, so I went without healthcare so many times and learned to find other ways to take care of my health.
I think of people that struggle with health issues all the time and I'm grateful I'm still pretty healthy. The paragraphs are adding up and I can reward myself with some music. I try to get the most I can on the page before I reward myself with a little something, music is always one of those things that makes me happy no matter what. "What if God was one of us," Joan Osborne, I hear playing softly in the background. I sit for a few minutes and listen, take a break and say a little prayer. I look out the window and see a lady with a pretty rose blossom jacket smoking a cigarette and wonder what her story is. Is she a baglady? I know she isn't, but who knows? Learning about being a baglady is my new thing. I remember in high school the baglady was always a fear, as in "ending up like a baglady."
"Women and families represent the fastest-growing groups of the homeless population in the United States.[1] Approximately 34% of the homeless population are families with children.[2] Most homeless families in the United States are led by a young single mother without familial support and material resources.[3]
Some of the major factors of homelessness among American women include domestic violence, of which women are the overwhelming victims, poverty, lack of access to healthcare and family planning, and the role of women as the primary caregivers of children. These factors contribute to the income and housing implications and inequalities that ensue, divorce, a decline of the welfare state, and the lack of affordable housing. Additionally, the poor mental and hygienic health of women is both a precursor and consequence of homelessness among the female population."
I loved the idea of being able to have a nice apartment, car, and being able to care for myself. I didn't go to the Prom, wasn't putting Tupperware in a hope chest in high school, and had no illusions about work. I knew I would always work. Poor woman regardless of children—worked. Things don't seem to have changed much for women really as they represent the fastest-growing groups of the homeless population.
I also adopted the new trend of believing that if you liked your work then it would not be work you would enjoy it and it wouldn't be work. I have found that to be true, except for all the stable benefits that come from doing something more stable. Creating your own career path can be nerve-racking, anxiety-producing, and not guarantee you have benefits all the time if you don't count benefits like doing your own thing, which has to carry you through in ways you can't imagine in the hard times. Making money from what you love to do is such a high that the low when revenues dry up can take most people out. I have been very fortunate to make my way doing what I love, but not realizing the sabotage that had been stalking me since a girl. The more successful you are the more haters you acquire. I'm seeing it's those people that chose to not live their dreams that spend their days resentful at jobs they hate with a lot of time their hands because they basically do the same thing each day and often are bored or too lazy to want to do something else.
Writing is like Yoga, the first few sentences are like the poses you first do in the morning as your body slow stretches awake, once your warmed up the flow begins and you start your sequence and as you move more effortlessly, you wonder why it was so hard to begin when you feel so good now. How did you get so angry when it's so good now. I don't remember the cold now, like women say once the child is born they forget how painful it was, creating is like that. So many projects don't come to fruition, the ones that do often come about with suffering and pain, and then when they are made complete we wonder how we could have doubted. The problem is sometimes it can take so long and we give up before success. You have to write bad, you have to make bad art, many many bad photographs, but then one day there's one—that one photo that one paragraph that one print and you're on to something and you continue.
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