You Never Leave the Places You've Been
I'm haunted by the memories of places I've been, choices I've made, sufferings and pleasures. I'm still thirteen years old, joining a cult that promised love and acceptance, emotional treasures I, an awkward, bookish boy, had never elsewhere found. I'm still seven, watching a spider wrap a fly as my parents shouted out the end of their marriage. I'm still seventeen, wandering through the Perris night in my first doomed bid for freedom.
I still live in my car, years after founding a family and renting more permanent digs. All the police, and criminals, and false friends linger. It's still my wedding day, the days of the births of my children, the day we got the autism diagnosis. It's the day my wife left me, and the day I left my wife. It's today, my kids and wife in the ocean, me on the shore, scribbling this essay in the front leaves of a book. It's all those times, together with thousands more. Time doesn't exist in chronological order.
When you make truly significant life choices, remember this. Before you join the military, or commit a crime, use drugs, or get married, or choose to try homelessness, remember this. Some of these choices are a crossroad, and the direction you choose will change you forever, for good or bad. If you choose to be homeless, you will never be as committed to your social place as you once were. You will know you can leave. The traumas and terrors, and time and freedom, will be in your dreams and on your mind in the middle of work days, on social occasions, and in quiet moments. You'll know things others don't.
Treat your mind as a museum you must curate. Choose carefully the exhibits. Once they enter the collection, they aren't going anywhere.
posted by Mobile Homemaker @ 5:45 PM
25 Comments:
This is so true, MH! painfully and happily true. I'm right there with you in some of those moments, and I have many others of my own, some I would like to lose... And many I will gladly keep. You are a wise man, my boy!
This was great. Thank you.
I read that about 30 years too late. You are wise. I will try to keep that with me...because I have a long way to go.
Thank you.
Awesome write. I treat my mind as a video camera but I never looked at it as a museum that's another great way to look at it. :)
As hard as it is to even vaguely sum up the pain in ones life, you've run my mind over every scar. Fuck you and thanks for the inspiration... Ill just continue to raise myself now
I guess that is a witness that care should be taken in building your experiences.
If you choose to be homeless, you will never be as committed to your social place as you once were. You will know you can leave. The traumas and terrors, and time and freedom, will be in your dreams and on your mind in the middle of work days, on social occasions, and in quiet moments. You'll know things others don't.
ha man, this almost made me cry - you have no idea. my time spent living in my car sometimes makes me wonder how i've been able to hold down jobs and have relationships (even with family). i'll be in the middle of a meeting or some social function and think about some randomly awesome thing i did when i had all that free time...and how my current life pales in comparison.
peace
Is there anyone on this blog that I can email about running away? Please and thank you for all your help.
I'm going to tell you not to do it, but you can email homelessnessATgmailDOTcom
Thank you. It's been many years now that I've been living a simple middle class lifestyle. But my mind often returns to a time when my circumstances were very difficult and life was about daily survival.
It's true, homelessness and instability (especially in youth) will indelibly render you different from many in society, in both good ways and bad. The most useful long term result for me has been that I can draw strength in my current life from what I survived and HOW I survived it... and that, if need be, I could endure it again (or whatever the heck else) and get myself back to good. Not that I'd want to go through that crap again, but there is tremendous freedom and independence in being able to trust in your own abilities because they've been tested.
Terrific blog, much appreciated.
I have read your blog before being homeless and afterwards now that I have found a job and an apartment. Your words about social commitment struck me powerfully as I've been struggling since coming out of my previous situation now recognizing that the "real" world is the realm true of true confusion and desperation. I want to go back to being free but those challenges and fears are in the back of my mind. Thank the universe I'm gathering my courage and am respectful of the wisdom gained from not having a personal residence. Your blog has meant a great deal to me through some troubling and enlightening times and I almost cry as I write this. Thank you
there is some power in your words and a lot of truth. My life spared me the experience of being homeless, but before starting 'a family' I lived of the land (nowadays 'survival'), slept in woods, travelled light and where I wanted. You can and you don't need a lot to do it. I miss it terribly. Modern living caught me up and I'm stuck in a job to pay for it all. That is not being free
that was good, now.. how do i go about being homeless?
This is a truly beautiful piece of writing. I'm looking forward to exploring this blog in more detail.
I was a kid when my mother and my 2 brothers where living in a car which was about 9 years ago and I’m 19 years old now. This blog really touched my heart because it reminds me of my mother so much. Although my mother did not choose to be homeless she didn’t work at all so it really seemed like she enjoyed the freedom a lot. To be honest till this day my mother still doesn’t work and now she’s living in a homeless shelter. I would have to agree that being homeless when you say “..you will never be as committed to your social place as you once were” because none of us felt like we were in our social place as we once was after being homeless.
I was a kid when my mother and my 2 brothers where living in a car which was about 9 years ago and I’m 19 years old now. This blog really touched my heart because it reminds me of my mother so much. Although my mother did not choose to be homeless she didn’t work at all so it really seemed like she enjoyed the freedom a lot. To be honest till this day my mother still doesn’t work and now she’s living in a homeless shelter. I would have to agree that being homeless when you say “..you will never be as committed to your social place as you once were” because none of us felt like we were in our social place as we once was after being homeless.
I am close to losing my job of nearly nine years. After struggling with depression for many years, I am no longer in a place where I can continue with my current lifestyle. So I've decided to travel with only what I can carry on my bicycle. I'll tell everyone I know that I'm taking an extended vacation to sort things out. The truth is, however, I'm not sure I ever want to come back.
Write a book. For God's sake write a book. Your latest post alone would make it a bestseller. That last paragraph is the best life advice I've ever heard. I've always believed you should never do anything you will regret later in life, but you said it so much better.
you truly deserve the praise you receive for this blog. my strength has been bolstered by your direct non-judging tone. thank you.
What I see in streets: People have afraid of what is different.They don´t understand and they really don´t want to understand...
My father is blind and he had a depression. Everybody was afraid of him and many people had rude and stupid behaviours ...Was difficult.
Excellent blog!
You have a writer soul and heart.
Good luck to your project! From a portuguese living in Lithuania!:)
I'm thinking for becoming homeless....my life is soo stressful I try to become a better man but my wife always put me down...I keep telling her I can't change over night...we have a child together but I don't know if I should just walk away and never look back.
I second the call to write a book. I can't express how much I believe such a book will help countless individuals who are struggling with feeling alone. This entire blog, miraculously enough, puts words - highly accurate, aesthetically beautiful words - to circumstances and psychological places that seem inexpressibly horrific and lonesome. And I can't tell you the relief it brings to me to read your words and mentally know that I am not a freak in my circumstances, but a part of a larger albeit unseen community. Please, please seriously consider writing a book.
So beautiful! So poetic and true. What we put in our minds is so much more important than we ever give it credit for.
Do you still monitor this blog? I hope so. I see you haven't posted since May 2012. Your life may, understandably, have moved you in a direction away from this blog.
I'm 48, female, out of work for almost a year and a half and it's looking very likely I will be homeless in a couple of months when my lease ends and my unemployment runs out. I'll be without a car, too, as the lease on it is done soon and I have no money to get another. I mean NO MONEY.
I'm afraid. I have 2 cats and I will not give them up. I WILL NOT.
I've been struggling with major depression for almost 3 years now. It's basically incapacitated me.
I found your blog last evening when I sat down to begin researching what I might need to know in order to be homeless. Learning that shelters don't take pets and they're not really anywhere you want to be anyway has me terrified. It's freezing out in the NEast where I live.
Your writing is beautiful, brilliant, haunting, poetic.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Your writing is
This blog and its comments are beautiful. Made me tear up..I'm sorry people have to be homeless in just rich nations as Canada and the US.
Post a Comment