Day 60

Confession: I’m past the honeymoon phase of this project. It really feels like work now, but I can see what’s unraveling.

I did errands today in a city I once lived in long ago. I drove past the streets and places others see as just streets and places, but I knew them all too well. It’s where I became homeless. When I later opened up about it, someone drove me to a homeless camp and yelled at me for saying I’d ever been homeless at all. They weren’t the only ones who dismissed me because I didn’t fit their narrow idea of what homelessness looks like. So I buried it.

But I’ve got something to say now:
It happened.

I carried my life in a backpack with two pairs of clothes. I walked through snow at 3 a.m. while my body went numb from the cold. I sat beside a cafeteria trashcan to grab leftovers. I slept on couches, air mattresses, hallways.

It’s a very long story, and I laughed in disbelief as I drove by it all. That girl wouldn’t believe what I had to survive to become her hero—but I did. I intimidate the hell out of her. And in ten years, I hope I intimidate the hell out of me.