Traumatic experiences have a way of lingering and becoming the lens through which we view ourselves and surroundings. In winter, a year and a half ago, a patrol car escorted me to a shelter. I had just begun processing the dissolution of a ten-year relationship when I found myself unhoused. After my first night in the shelter, I woke to a text from my ex-girlfriend: You’ll thank me one day. My belongings were at her house, and I immediately began paying a storage fee.
After completing an intake, I was accepted into the building. Recent arrivals spent nights in a small chapel on the first floor. The church was filled with forty elevated cots. An organ and pulpit sat on the small stage. The upstairs area had two large dorms with bunk beds. I was soon assigned a case worker who helped me navigate a new reality.
It had been unusually frigid and snowing for weeks. When it became dangerously cold in January, anyone who needed shelter was not turned away. The courtyard, next to the shelter, was an enclosed space where many gathered to smoke, socialize or to escape the overcrowded building. During this time, I learned that my mom was searching for her own residence.
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I was seven when I first became unhoused. We placed our belongings in black garbage bags and departed at twilight. My parents were active in their addictions and got too far behind on rent. My dad had just been released from jail and my mom left nursing school because she couldn’t stand the sight of blood. Over the next decade, I lived with relatives or family friends, while my parents vanished into the streets.
I never told my mom I was unhoused because I didn’t want to upset her. Weeks before I went to the shelter, I gave her a stack of books, including stuff by John Steinbeck and George Orwell. When I spoke to her again, a few days later, she’d already read The Grapes of Wrath. When I was a kid, I often saw her with her nose in a book. She mostly read Stephen King or thick romance novels. I suggested to her that reading might make the winter go by faster. I didn’t know it would be the last time I saw her for years.
My childhood and adolescence were marked by abject instability. While living with others, I constantly felt far from where I belonged. When I was in elementary school, I was hit by a car while riding my bike. The impact sent me whirling into the air and momentarily unable to walk. The entire neighborhood saw it, but no one in my family took me to receive medical attention or even ask how I was feeling. Up until my mid-teens, I lived with three aunts, my older sister, my mom’s abusive boyfriend and a family friend. My parents tried to reconcile, but this only lasted for a few months before I was off somewhere else. At each location my parents were gone; my dad went to live with his mother and my mom often disappeared for days without warning. This made me feel discarded and that my needs were unworthy of being met.
I was assigned a bunk in a dorm around a month after arriving. I learned the dorm was infested with bed bugs, as bite marks appeared on my wrists. Soon, the heating system stopped functioning, and some remained ill for long periods because of the relentless temperatures. There was still a sense of comradery and positivity between several of us. I had a bluetooth speaker I’d play music on in the dorms, even though it was against the rules. Eventually, I started getting requests to play certain songs. One winter night, I played the song “Rich Spirit” by Kendrick Lamar and one of the residents started vibing to it and requested to hear it again. He then began freestyling, so I switched to the instrumental version. Everyone began paying close attention and encouraging him to continue. It was incredible and went on for over an hour. His themes were surviving past struggles and fostering strength to survive the present moment.
When I was older, my mom told me she drank and used hard drugs while pregnant with me. She said much of her family wanted her to have an abortion, but something, a strong feeling, convinced her to keep me. I forgave her immediately and told her I understood.
When my mom was a teenager, she left high school when she became pregnant with my sister. She suffered physical abuse at the hands of my sister’s father. One day, my mom retaliated and he never touched her again. In the midst of his last assault, she managed to take hold of a razorblade and gashed him deeply within an inch of his jugular vein. I wish she had never experienced any of it.
Most of my experiences as a child have been redacted from memory. My baseline is to scan the structure of each relationship or situation for signs of weakness in integrity. This is unconscious and can be traced back to the neglect I experienced early on. Whenever I hear gunshots ring in the distance, I begin time-traveling; familiar responses course though my nervous system. I must bring myself back to where I am presently and sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I’m unsuccessful. My thoughts race and my attention becomes scattered.
During my stay in the shelter, I made it a point to call her, but I only said that I broke up with my girlfriend, was looking for a place to go and attending church a lot. I felt this was something I had to figure out on my own. I was volunteering at a literary magazine, reviewing submissions whenever I went to the library. In March, it was announced that the upstairs portion of the shelter was being shut down indefinitely. When my editor in chief became aware of my situation, they insisted I allow them to start a go-fund me on my behalf. There’s no way I can ever repay them.
With the heat still not operating, my body temperature dropped so that no amount of clothing or bed covers warmed me up. Early one morning, I awakened with no feeling in my hands. I called my ex and she suggested I go to the emergency room. The hospital rooms were overbooked so I fell asleep on a bed in the hallway. A nurse woke me up and gave me breakfast. Soon, the numbness went away and I walked back to the shelter.
As support came in, I intensified my search for a new place. The apartments I saw were beyond my budget, but I got in touch with a property owner who had a spare room for rent. It felt good to be off the street but, after a year, renovations were being made which rendered the room unaffordable. I found a studio apartment for in northern Detroit in Spring of this year and have been living here, with my cat, ever since.
I’m used to surviving off very little or nothing. I realized, rather painfully, that in a lot of ways, I’d adopted my parent’s wanderlust and laissez faire attitude. I’d blindly rejected conventional wisdom without investigating for myself. I needed a renewed sense of discipline because I operated inconsistently, with little foresight. I’ve always had the impulse to understand the rules in order to break them but it was imperative I practice self-control and seek balance.
I’m a contradiction because I want complete freedom, but an equal part of me wants to experience intimacy to the point of mutual dissolution. I don’t think the two can coexist. I feel I’m in the midst of dismantling antiquated views about my self and the world that no longer serve any purpose.
Around the time my mom opened up about her pregnancy, she said that I have the habit of keeping everyone at arm’s length. I didn’t accept her words at the time but I do now. It’s difficult for me to relax my defenses. I become resistant whenever vulnerability becomes a necessity.
I believe that direct experience offers the best opportunity for growth. In a lot of ways, being homeless, as an adult, was an education. I realized I could depend on myself in any situation, no matter how precarious. In critical ways, it provided a much needed reset on my life and perspective.
While at a church that served meals, three grandmothers were there who drove from northern Michigan to serve us homemade chicken noodle soup. I was stunned and emotional the entire day because of my encounter with them. This encouraged me to reexamine the negative assumptions I held about others and myself. I became determined to not let any act of love I receive be in vain.
