"I'm Good" ...from my files.
I wrote this about month after being rescued from the streets by my family. I was still adjusting to a "normal" life of eating sleeping in a bed having a door I could lock.
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All my experiences from the last year, and some are catching up with me.
Hey I'm good,...good.
I'm in my new home, but I still think It's someone else's. I'm still trying to get used to being a person again. Strange. So strange is what I'd call my current life.
It's like I'm living in two worlds at the same time.
Out there, and in here.
These last year has been filled with dangers, despairs, hopes, and surreal adventures. I think I'm, supposed to be dead. I'm sure of that.
Perhaps of exposure on one of those cold nights on the streets or I was killed in that mugging.
Maybe so.
What's happened since. My being rescued by Sister finding a new home. All these things are shadows.
The reality is I'm still in that alley on the ground bleeding. That or curled up in a doorway or in Liberty Park waiting for hypothermia.
What I've lived since being found 'is' a dream within the few seconds before my death after I was attacked.
I have a fear I'll wake up at the very last moment. It will be night, it will be cold.I will be in that alley. I take a ragged breath, and drift into eternity.
'But I won't.
I'm here now. In a home that is mine. I have a life again.
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I remember you had difficulty adjusting to having a bed. You slept on the floor behind the door with your books! Do you recall that? ...from my sister Sylvia.
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Yes. Yes I slept on a sleeping bag behind the bed room door with some books set up like a wall. I listened for sounds noises. When outside you were never safe...so you listened especially when resting.
One didn't go into a deep sleep...that was suicide.
One napped for minutes at a time...exhaustion as well as dehydration was normal. The first night in my new home I counted 87 noises...I know because I wrote it down in one of the note-books I kept on this journey. It took months to regularly sleep in my bed, and stop listening.
(Below is where I slept for a long time...behind my bed-room door. I hadn't put the books up yet. This is maybe the first week in my new place.)
Hey I'm good,...good.
I'm in my new home, but I still think It's someone else's. I'm still trying to get used to being a person again. Strange. So strange is what I'd call my current life.
It's like I'm living in two worlds at the same time.
Out there, and in here.
These last year has been filled with dangers, despairs, hopes, and surreal adventures. I think I'm, supposed to be dead. I'm sure of that.
Perhaps of exposure on one of those cold nights on the streets or I was killed in that mugging.
Maybe so.
What's happened since. My being rescued by Sister finding a new home. All these things are shadows.
The reality is I'm still in that alley on the ground bleeding. That or curled up in a doorway or in Liberty Park waiting for hypothermia.
What I've lived since being found 'is' a dream within the few seconds before my death after I was attacked.
I have a fear I'll wake up at the very last moment. It will be night, it will be cold.I will be in that alley. I take a ragged breath, and drift into eternity.
'But I won't.
I'm here now. In a home that is mine. I have a life again.
---------------------------------------------------------
I remember you had difficulty adjusting to having a bed. You slept on the floor behind the door with your books! Do you recall that? ...from my sister Sylvia.
---------------------------------------------------------
Yes. Yes I slept on a sleeping bag behind the bed room door with some books set up like a wall. I listened for sounds noises. When outside you were never safe...so you listened especially when resting.
One didn't go into a deep sleep...that was suicide.
One napped for minutes at a time...exhaustion as well as dehydration was normal. The first night in my new home I counted 87 noises...I know because I wrote it down in one of the note-books I kept on this journey. It took months to regularly sleep in my bed, and stop listening.
(Below is where I slept for a long time...behind my bed-room door. I hadn't put the books up yet. This is maybe the first week in my new place.)
Being wet, and cold. These were the worse parts...never getting dry. Looking back I'm horrified, and have no idea how I managed any of it.
However being there in it I was too emotionally numb.
.....too busy to have rational reactions.
As in war you are just too busy staying alive to react to horrors. In fact they're not horrors to you just what's going on is all. I found strengths I had no idea were there. Much as in the stories of a mother lifting a car off of her child in a burst of adrenalin.
My Homeless Year was one long burst of quiet adrenalin.
As I say, ..."I'm Good". Good to go.
"Homeless Barbie"
In fact I had a few of my dolls with me while on the street. Yes a friend kept several boxes of what I could rescue from my former home. However I wanted to keep a few things personally with me. they kept me sane.
However being there in it I was too emotionally numb.
.....too busy to have rational reactions.
As in war you are just too busy staying alive to react to horrors. In fact they're not horrors to you just what's going on is all. I found strengths I had no idea were there. Much as in the stories of a mother lifting a car off of her child in a burst of adrenalin.
My Homeless Year was one long burst of quiet adrenalin.
As I say, ..."I'm Good". Good to go.
"Homeless Barbie"
In fact I had a few of my dolls with me while on the street. Yes a friend kept several boxes of what I could rescue from my former home. However I wanted to keep a few things personally with me. they kept me sane.
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