I've won the Listserve! - Apologize ahead for any spelling mistakes.

Here we go. I was homeless for about 2 months. My fault, my mistakes;
I won't talk about them here. I do want to share with you some
interesting circumstances I lived through during these 2 long months.

Food was hard to come by but I got to know where free meals were being
served eventually. Some places were great, others not so. When I
finally got into a homeless shelter this one short woman who though
she was the queen of the world kicked me out for laughing at her. I
tried to stop myself but she got so caught up in the fact that there
was a pillow thief running around. So I went to this horrible shelter.
Drug addicts, alcoholics, etc. I tried using the restroom but because
that was the only place with no cameras, all the addicts would snort,
inject, smoke stuff and there was always a perpetual haze in there. I
would come out all dizzy and light-headed from the fumes.

This one time, a dude I've never seen before tried to show me
something in the bathroom. It glinted shiny so my immediatte though
was "knife!" I raised my hand to block it and was about to hit him
when it was revealed to be just a lighter. Whew...

I also apperantly took some dude's spot and he got all pissy. He got
kicked out, his brother didn't. I spent the whole night stressed and
with one eye open thinking I was going to be shanked by the brother.
Luckily, I got out of there quick as the better shelter had a vacancy.
I made sure to stay away from that Short Queen.

I had one last trial before getting out of homelessness: I fell into a
Catch-22. I had already started a nice, Monday to Friday job. Too bad
the DMV isn't open on Saturdays so I couldn't get an ID for a pretty
long time. I needed my ID to cash my check, but I need my check cashed
to pay for an ID. Luckily, a coworker helped me out by cashing my
check for me. And then I find out I need to wait 2 weeks before
receiving it in the mail. That was convenient /s.

We played a lot of cards. Talked a lot about random things. It
actually surprised me that I could find other "normal" people there. I
guess life doesn't discriminate when it wants to hit hard. It just
sucks that mistakes people make follow them for a long time after
they've been made. And when humans do try to get their life turned
around, it feels like every stride one takes, the government hits you
and tries to keep you from improving. Poor tax. I had to pay huge fees
just because I was poor which kept me poor. Even though I've never
been addicted to anything, I think me trying to climb out of
homelessness and poverty was a sort of metaphor the Universe wanted me
to understand for what addicts were going through.

Thank you, Universe. Thanks for the enemies, thanks for the friends.
Thanks for... perspective.


-Artie
down.artem[AT]gmail.com
Bangor, Maine