Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 25, 2020, 08:32:00 PM

Quote from: Ingy on May 25, 2020, 12:40:08 PM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 24, 2020, 01:18:18 PM

That's a complicated question with a complicated answer.

Was there one event or was it a gradual slide into despair

I feel like I can't really say I "hate" life anymore because things just aren't as bad as they used to be. Life is still pretty shit overall but it'll never come close to how it was. From having my first major existential crisis in 4th/5th grade to being kicked out, going homeless and losing everything and everyone I cared about.  I don't hate simply existing anymore, for the most part I'm fairly okay with it.

Could make a lengthy blog post but it's whatever.
I spent an unhealthy amount of time on this forum as a sort of crutch for how much my life was falling apart.

Ah, you did some time on the streets and came out of it too huh. Good on you for managing to pull yourself out. I know how hard it can be to get out of that circle.

I fought against it from happening every single step of the way and ultimately I was still powerless towards preventing it from happening. The hardest part about it was how goddamn hard I tried to do things right but how I lacked any control whatsoever of the situation. It was like I accidentally bumped into the boulder, and once it started rolling down the hill there was no stopping it no matter how desperately I tried to.

I kept trying and trying and trying and it seemed like I kept getting curbstomped into the ground. I remember this overwhelming feeling that I wanted to just give up but for some reason I just didn't, this feeling that I was continuing the crawl forward against my will despite being kicked and stepped on over and over along the way. I didn't want to keep going, but I did anyway.

I'm still around and kicking, and will continue to do so. But I find that my drive and passion is gone, washed up. The motivation I had back then, when I pushed through ridiculous amounts of bullshit to make things happen despite it, it's gone. I don't trust people, I don't have faith in anything. Been pretty socially isolated even before this pandemic stuff started. Yet for some reason I still hope that one day I'll be in a comfortable enough position where I'm self sustaining and content with my life. I still hope that one day my motivation will come back and I can actually do something meaningful with my life, in whatever capacity it may be.

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 26, 2020, 12:51:07 AM

Quote from: E on May 25, 2020, 09:38:22 PM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 25, 2020, 08:32:00 PM

Quote from: Ingy on May 25, 2020, 12:40:08 PM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 24, 2020, 01:18:18 PM

That's a complicated question with a complicated answer.

Was there one event or was it a gradual slide into despair

I feel like I can't really say I "hate" life anymore because things just aren't as bad as they used to be. Life is still pretty shit overall but it'll never come close to how it was. From having my first major existential crisis in 4th/5th grade to being kicked out, going homeless and losing everything and everyone I cared about.  I don't hate simply existing anymore, for the most part I'm fairly okay with it.

Could make a lengthy blog post but it's whatever.
I spent an unhealthy amount of time on this forum as a sort of crutch for how much my life was falling apart.

Ah, you did some time on the streets and came out of it too huh. Good on you for managing to pull yourself out. I know how hard it can be to get out of that circle.

I fought against it from happening every single step of the way and ultimately I was still powerless towards preventing it from happening. The hardest part about it was how goddamn hard I tried to do things right but how I lacked any control whatsoever of the situation. It was like I accidentally bumped into the boulder, and once it started rolling down the hill there was no stopping it no matter how desperately I tried to.

I kept trying and trying and trying and it seemed like I kept getting curbstomped into the ground. I remember this overwhelming feeling that I wanted to just give up but for some reason I just didn't, this feeling that I was continuing the crawl forward against my will despite being kicked and stepped on over and over along the way. I didn't want to keep going, but I did anyway.

I'm still around and kicking, and will continue to do so. But I find that my drive and passion is gone, washed up. The motivation I had back then, when I pushed through ridiculous amounts of bullshit to make things happen despite it, it's gone. I don't trust people, I don't have faith in anything. Been pretty socially isolated even before this pandemic stuff started. Yet for some reason I still hope that one day I'll be in a comfortable enough position where I'm self sustaining and content with my life. I still hope that one day my motivation will come back and I can actually do something meaningful with my life, in whatever capacity it may be.

Never too late to start anew. I spent five years as a wanderer with no place to stay and no income. Managed to keep myself alive by stealing money from people, just enough so as not to be missed, not enough to get attacked by other homeless, but enough to buy food for the day. My home's not much of an upgrade over what I was, a truck camper on a truck, but boy is it nice to have during the winters up here.

I'll tell you some stuff. Motivation doesn't arrive out of the blue. It's all in how you frame reality. At any point in time you can stand up and choose to do it differently. The focal point should never be the difficulty. Problems will always come no matter what you do and how you prepare. What matters is the goal and whether or not you want to let yourself be stopped from reaching it.

And I get the slow crawl. I wake up and go to sleep every day missing a person I love very dearly. Life's dreadfully awful without her company to the point that I don't have much of an existence with any meaning, other than two things. To stick around because I know she'd want me to fight it, and because I want to honor the dream we had and build the house we both wanted to build together. Contentment and happiness take time to re-learn but you gotta be open to it, and on occasion, fight very hard for it.

I never stole anything, but I'd been stolen from plenty of times during that time. Was even held at knife-point once. I dedicated my life to volunteering, because no one was hiring me anyway and all these various organizations were more than happy to take my free labor and I was deluded enough to think I was making a difference. Frankly it was the only thing that gave me a sense of purpose. It was also a good way to meet people that let me crash their couches though. I've won tons of small scholarships for all the work I did and they were supposed to help me go to university. All of it went to rent. In any case, eventually I managed to attempt attending community college despite still not having stable housing, had a really rocky semester and then I got in contact with my current roommate. He's basically the only reason I've been in relatively stable housing for the last few years.

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 26, 2020, 02:54:27 AM

Quote from: E on May 26, 2020, 02:29:30 AM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 26, 2020, 12:51:07 AM

Quote from: E on May 25, 2020, 09:38:22 PM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 25, 2020, 08:32:00 PM

Quote from: Ingy on May 25, 2020, 12:40:08 PM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 24, 2020, 01:18:18 PM

That's a complicated question with a complicated answer.

Was there one event or was it a gradual slide into despair

I feel like I can't really say I "hate" life anymore because things just aren't as bad as they used to be. Life is still pretty shit overall but it'll never come close to how it was. From having my first major existential crisis in 4th/5th grade to being kicked out, going homeless and losing everything and everyone I cared about.  I don't hate simply existing anymore, for the most part I'm fairly okay with it.

Could make a lengthy blog post but it's whatever.
I spent an unhealthy amount of time on this forum as a sort of crutch for how much my life was falling apart.

Ah, you did some time on the streets and came out of it too huh. Good on you for managing to pull yourself out. I know how hard it can be to get out of that circle.

I fought against it from happening every single step of the way and ultimately I was still powerless towards preventing it from happening. The hardest part about it was how goddamn hard I tried to do things right but how I lacked any control whatsoever of the situation. It was like I accidentally bumped into the boulder, and once it started rolling down the hill there was no stopping it no matter how desperately I tried to.

I kept trying and trying and trying and it seemed like I kept getting curbstomped into the ground. I remember this overwhelming feeling that I wanted to just give up but for some reason I just didn't, this feeling that I was continuing the crawl forward against my will despite being kicked and stepped on over and over along the way. I didn't want to keep going, but I did anyway.

I'm still around and kicking, and will continue to do so. But I find that my drive and passion is gone, washed up. The motivation I had back then, when I pushed through ridiculous amounts of bullshit to make things happen despite it, it's gone. I don't trust people, I don't have faith in anything. Been pretty socially isolated even before this pandemic stuff started. Yet for some reason I still hope that one day I'll be in a comfortable enough position where I'm self sustaining and content with my life. I still hope that one day my motivation will come back and I can actually do something meaningful with my life, in whatever capacity it may be.

Never too late to start anew. I spent five years as a wanderer with no place to stay and no income. Managed to keep myself alive by stealing money from people, just enough so as not to be missed, not enough to get attacked by other homeless, but enough to buy food for the day. My home's not much of an upgrade over what I was, a truck camper on a truck, but boy is it nice to have during the winters up here.

I'll tell you some stuff. Motivation doesn't arrive out of the blue. It's all in how you frame reality. At any point in time you can stand up and choose to do it differently. The focal point should never be the difficulty. Problems will always come no matter what you do and how you prepare. What matters is the goal and whether or not you want to let yourself be stopped from reaching it.

And I get the slow crawl. I wake up and go to sleep every day missing a person I love very dearly. Life's dreadfully awful without her company to the point that I don't have much of an existence with any meaning, other than two things. To stick around because I know she'd want me to fight it, and because I want to honor the dream we had and build the house we both wanted to build together. Contentment and happiness take time to re-learn but you gotta be open to it, and on occasion, fight very hard for it.

I never stole anything, but I'd been stolen from plenty of times during that time. Was even held at knife-point once. I dedicated my life to volunteering, because no one was hiring me anyway and all these various organizations were more than happy to take my free labor and I was deluded enough to think I was making a difference. Frankly it was the only thing that gave me a sense of purpose. It was also a good way to meet people that let me crash their couches though. I've won tons of small scholarships for all the work I did and they were supposed to help me go to university. All of it went to rent. In any case, eventually I managed to attempt attending community college despite still not having stable housing, had a really rocky semester and then I got in contact with my current roommate. He's basically the only reason I've been in relatively stable housing for the last few years.

Oh, I was stolen from too early on. After losing my first backpack of shit which was essentially my lifeline I developed careful habits. Avoided city and town centers and took note of active homeless gatherings so that I could avoid them as much as possible. I stuck to the fringes of bigger cities and did most of my pillaging in small towns I was passing through. I had a couple close calls and did a few abnormally awful things I'm not happy about. That and the theiving of course. I guess it's why I'm not stingy with my money with people. I aught to repay back what I took.

Five years of that and then I hit my low point. I swiped a shotgun from a farmer and headed out into the woods during the winter intending to blow the back of my head out. I just about accomplished it even after I chose not to. Freezing fingers pulled the trigger and it went off next to head. Permanently deaf on my left side now. Small price to pay I think.

Shit dude. I was only out there for a little less than a year. One of my biggest fears was falling to this point I considered the "point of no return", you might know what I mean. You can see it on a lot of people, the fact that they'll likely never be functional again. I kept myself busy, always working, always doing something. A lot of people in that local community knew my face, because any time there was an event I was there and I probably helped with set-up and tear-down. Was decently connected too since I had a smart phone and laptops that people gave me. The worst things I had stolen was my bike and later my moped, but besides that I did a relatively decent job storing my things with people who I trusted enough to not fuck with my shit too much.

Quote from: MarKhan on May 24, 2020, 04:15:02 AM

When Zelensky won president election year ago.

Tell me more.

There is so much to tell about what is going on that I don't even want to start. But today happened something exceptional. Spetsnaz (ukrainian analogy for Special forces for those who unaware) and who appears to be State Bureau of Investigation (who appears because they never showed their documents) today stormed and captured a museum in which our ex-president, Poroshenko, contributed a lot ukrainian and skifian works which he bought off from different countries and in which exhibiton was taking place at the moment, so I got to see the show live. For what (official) reason? Nobody knows. Neither it's legal. By the way, spetsnaz is still in there. 12 hours since it happened and they are still sitting there, doing god-knows-what. They haven't let anyone in either, neither journalists nor deputees.

Found a video.


Edit: actually I found out that Spetsnaz left 7 hours ago, and opposition news channels claim that they took some paintings and declarations for them. Also Poroshenko lawyer claims that he managed to see documents of one of State Bureau of Investigation employee that have been there, but that they were expired.

Quote from: E on May 26, 2020, 02:37:25 PM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 26, 2020, 02:54:27 AM

Quote from: E on May 26, 2020, 02:29:30 AM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 26, 2020, 12:51:07 AM

Quote from: E on May 25, 2020, 09:38:22 PM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 25, 2020, 08:32:00 PM

Quote from: Ingy on May 25, 2020, 12:40:08 PM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 24, 2020, 01:18:18 PM

That's a complicated question with a complicated answer.

Was there one event or was it a gradual slide into despair

I feel like I can't really say I "hate" life anymore because things just aren't as bad as they used to be. Life is still pretty shit overall but it'll never come close to how it was. From having my first major existential crisis in 4th/5th grade to being kicked out, going homeless and losing everything and everyone I cared about.  I don't hate simply existing anymore, for the most part I'm fairly okay with it.

Could make a lengthy blog post but it's whatever.
I spent an unhealthy amount of time on this forum as a sort of crutch for how much my life was falling apart.

Ah, you did some time on the streets and came out of it too huh. Good on you for managing to pull yourself out. I know how hard it can be to get out of that circle.

I fought against it from happening every single step of the way and ultimately I was still powerless towards preventing it from happening. The hardest part about it was how goddamn hard I tried to do things right but how I lacked any control whatsoever of the situation. It was like I accidentally bumped into the boulder, and once it started rolling down the hill there was no stopping it no matter how desperately I tried to.

I kept trying and trying and trying and it seemed like I kept getting curbstomped into the ground. I remember this overwhelming feeling that I wanted to just give up but for some reason I just didn't, this feeling that I was continuing the crawl forward against my will despite being kicked and stepped on over and over along the way. I didn't want to keep going, but I did anyway.

I'm still around and kicking, and will continue to do so. But I find that my drive and passion is gone, washed up. The motivation I had back then, when I pushed through ridiculous amounts of bullshit to make things happen despite it, it's gone. I don't trust people, I don't have faith in anything. Been pretty socially isolated even before this pandemic stuff started. Yet for some reason I still hope that one day I'll be in a comfortable enough position where I'm self sustaining and content with my life. I still hope that one day my motivation will come back and I can actually do something meaningful with my life, in whatever capacity it may be.

Never too late to start anew. I spent five years as a wanderer with no place to stay and no income. Managed to keep myself alive by stealing money from people, just enough so as not to be missed, not enough to get attacked by other homeless, but enough to buy food for the day. My home's not much of an upgrade over what I was, a truck camper on a truck, but boy is it nice to have during the winters up here.

I'll tell you some stuff. Motivation doesn't arrive out of the blue. It's all in how you frame reality. At any point in time you can stand up and choose to do it differently. The focal point should never be the difficulty. Problems will always come no matter what you do and how you prepare. What matters is the goal and whether or not you want to let yourself be stopped from reaching it.

And I get the slow crawl. I wake up and go to sleep every day missing a person I love very dearly. Life's dreadfully awful without her company to the point that I don't have much of an existence with any meaning, other than two things. To stick around because I know she'd want me to fight it, and because I want to honor the dream we had and build the house we both wanted to build together. Contentment and happiness take time to re-learn but you gotta be open to it, and on occasion, fight very hard for it.

I never stole anything, but I'd been stolen from plenty of times during that time. Was even held at knife-point once. I dedicated my life to volunteering, because no one was hiring me anyway and all these various organizations were more than happy to take my free labor and I was deluded enough to think I was making a difference. Frankly it was the only thing that gave me a sense of purpose. It was also a good way to meet people that let me crash their couches though. I've won tons of small scholarships for all the work I did and they were supposed to help me go to university. All of it went to rent. In any case, eventually I managed to attempt attending community college despite still not having stable housing, had a really rocky semester and then I got in contact with my current roommate. He's basically the only reason I've been in relatively stable housing for the last few years.

Oh, I was stolen from too early on. After losing my first backpack of shit which was essentially my lifeline I developed careful habits. Avoided city and town centers and took note of active homeless gatherings so that I could avoid them as much as possible. I stuck to the fringes of bigger cities and did most of my pillaging in small towns I was passing through. I had a couple close calls and did a few abnormally awful things I'm not happy about. That and the theiving of course. I guess it's why I'm not stingy with my money with people. I aught to repay back what I took.

Five years of that and then I hit my low point. I swiped a shotgun from a farmer and headed out into the woods during the winter intending to blow the back of my head out. I just about accomplished it even after I chose not to. Freezing fingers pulled the trigger and it went off next to head. Permanently deaf on my left side now. Small price to pay I think.

Shit dude. I was only out there for a little less than a year. One of my biggest fears was falling to this point I considered the "point of no return", you might know what I mean. You can see it on a lot of people, the fact that they'll likely never be functional again. I kept myself busy, always working, always doing something. A lot of people in that local community knew my face, because any time there was an event I was there and I probably helped with set-up and tear-down. Was decently connected too since I had a smart phone and laptops that people gave me. The worst things I had stolen was my bike and later my moped, but besides that I did a relatively decent job storing my things with people who I trusted enough to not fuck with my shit too much.

Yes, I hear you. It's another one of the reasons why I tended to stay away from homeless populations. There's some people you genuinely look at and you can't help but wonder how they're alive. It's a level of despair so deep it's difficult to comprehend. That and it spreads like a virus. Stick around a group of the downtrodden and you'll feel it.

As for stuff, during those five years it was me and everything that I could fit into a backpack or carry on it. I think the largest amount of money I ever stole was close to two hundred dollars, and that was only because the person I'd studied and watched for several days was a drug dealer. I had no qualms taking all I could get from him. But that was one of the things that almost cost me my life. With regular people, I made a point never to steal anything that might actually be valuable. I scrounged for pocket change and people's random dollar bills. The max I ever took from regular people was twenty a shot.

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 26, 2020, 03:10:58 PM

Quote from: E on May 26, 2020, 02:37:25 PM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 26, 2020, 02:54:27 AM

Quote from: E on May 26, 2020, 02:29:30 AM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 26, 2020, 12:51:07 AM

Quote from: E on May 25, 2020, 09:38:22 PM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 25, 2020, 08:32:00 PM

Quote from: Ingy on May 25, 2020, 12:40:08 PM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 24, 2020, 01:18:18 PM

That's a complicated question with a complicated answer.

Was there one event or was it a gradual slide into despair

I feel like I can't really say I "hate" life anymore because things just aren't as bad as they used to be. Life is still pretty shit overall but it'll never come close to how it was. From having my first major existential crisis in 4th/5th grade to being kicked out, going homeless and losing everything and everyone I cared about.  I don't hate simply existing anymore, for the most part I'm fairly okay with it.

Could make a lengthy blog post but it's whatever.
I spent an unhealthy amount of time on this forum as a sort of crutch for how much my life was falling apart.

Ah, you did some time on the streets and came out of it too huh. Good on you for managing to pull yourself out. I know how hard it can be to get out of that circle.

I fought against it from happening every single step of the way and ultimately I was still powerless towards preventing it from happening. The hardest part about it was how goddamn hard I tried to do things right but how I lacked any control whatsoever of the situation. It was like I accidentally bumped into the boulder, and once it started rolling down the hill there was no stopping it no matter how desperately I tried to.

I kept trying and trying and trying and it seemed like I kept getting curbstomped into the ground. I remember this overwhelming feeling that I wanted to just give up but for some reason I just didn't, this feeling that I was continuing the crawl forward against my will despite being kicked and stepped on over and over along the way. I didn't want to keep going, but I did anyway.

I'm still around and kicking, and will continue to do so. But I find that my drive and passion is gone, washed up. The motivation I had back then, when I pushed through ridiculous amounts of bullshit to make things happen despite it, it's gone. I don't trust people, I don't have faith in anything. Been pretty socially isolated even before this pandemic stuff started. Yet for some reason I still hope that one day I'll be in a comfortable enough position where I'm self sustaining and content with my life. I still hope that one day my motivation will come back and I can actually do something meaningful with my life, in whatever capacity it may be.

Never too late to start anew. I spent five years as a wanderer with no place to stay and no income. Managed to keep myself alive by stealing money from people, just enough so as not to be missed, not enough to get attacked by other homeless, but enough to buy food for the day. My home's not much of an upgrade over what I was, a truck camper on a truck, but boy is it nice to have during the winters up here.

I'll tell you some stuff. Motivation doesn't arrive out of the blue. It's all in how you frame reality. At any point in time you can stand up and choose to do it differently. The focal point should never be the difficulty. Problems will always come no matter what you do and how you prepare. What matters is the goal and whether or not you want to let yourself be stopped from reaching it.

And I get the slow crawl. I wake up and go to sleep every day missing a person I love very dearly. Life's dreadfully awful without her company to the point that I don't have much of an existence with any meaning, other than two things. To stick around because I know she'd want me to fight it, and because I want to honor the dream we had and build the house we both wanted to build together. Contentment and happiness take time to re-learn but you gotta be open to it, and on occasion, fight very hard for it.

I never stole anything, but I'd been stolen from plenty of times during that time. Was even held at knife-point once. I dedicated my life to volunteering, because no one was hiring me anyway and all these various organizations were more than happy to take my free labor and I was deluded enough to think I was making a difference. Frankly it was the only thing that gave me a sense of purpose. It was also a good way to meet people that let me crash their couches though. I've won tons of small scholarships for all the work I did and they were supposed to help me go to university. All of it went to rent. In any case, eventually I managed to attempt attending community college despite still not having stable housing, had a really rocky semester and then I got in contact with my current roommate. He's basically the only reason I've been in relatively stable housing for the last few years.

Oh, I was stolen from too early on. After losing my first backpack of shit which was essentially my lifeline I developed careful habits. Avoided city and town centers and took note of active homeless gatherings so that I could avoid them as much as possible. I stuck to the fringes of bigger cities and did most of my pillaging in small towns I was passing through. I had a couple close calls and did a few abnormally awful things I'm not happy about. That and the theiving of course. I guess it's why I'm not stingy with my money with people. I aught to repay back what I took.

Five years of that and then I hit my low point. I swiped a shotgun from a farmer and headed out into the woods during the winter intending to blow the back of my head out. I just about accomplished it even after I chose not to. Freezing fingers pulled the trigger and it went off next to head. Permanently deaf on my left side now. Small price to pay I think.

Shit dude. I was only out there for a little less than a year. One of my biggest fears was falling to this point I considered the "point of no return", you might know what I mean. You can see it on a lot of people, the fact that they'll likely never be functional again. I kept myself busy, always working, always doing something. A lot of people in that local community knew my face, because any time there was an event I was there and I probably helped with set-up and tear-down. Was decently connected too since I had a smart phone and laptops that people gave me. The worst things I had stolen was my bike and later my moped, but besides that I did a relatively decent job storing my things with people who I trusted enough to not fuck with my shit too much.

Yes, I hear you. It's another one of the reasons why I tended to stay away from homeless populations. There's some people you genuinely look at and you can't help but wonder how they're alive. It's a level of despair so deep it's difficult to comprehend. That and it spreads like a virus. Stick around a group of the downtrodden and you'll feel it.

As for stuff, during those five years it was me and everything that I could fit into a backpack or carry on it. I think the largest amount of money I ever stole was close to two hundred dollars, and that was only because the person I'd studied and watched for several days was a drug dealer. I had no qualms taking all I could get from him. But that was one of the things that almost cost me my life. With regular people, I made a point never to steal anything that might actually be valuable. I scrounged for pocket change and people's random dollar bills. The max I ever took from regular people was twenty a shot.

I had a suitcase and one of those brown paper grocery bags. I didn't take them with me everywhere as you might imagine. All things considered, I guess I'm glad I went the volunteering route despite some of the bullshit because it probably got me out if the situation the fastest since people saw me actively trying to help even though I was barely surviving myself. It was hard learning to accept help from others, but it was necessary for survival and it was a bit easier to swallow since I'd already been contributing towards so many things. But I still struggled with it and found myself trying to justify things in my head.

The awards I got are nice but sometimes they feel a bit hollow because I feel no connection to them now. I used to tell people that it felt like I was "prostituting my suffering" because accepting them usually meant going up on a stage and showing off how pitiful my life was. Absolutely hated it, but I probably wouldn't be around today without it.

That's uh. I don't know man. That's some pretty heavy stuff.

That's uh. I don't know man. That's some pretty heavy stuff.

Ah, I know. I saw a lot during those five or so years. That's the worst for what I've personally done. I saw a lot worse coming from other people. I traveled across canada and stopped and turned back when I got to quebec. That was the roughest place I've ever been to, at least in canada. I'm glad to be rid of the streets, although I suppose I'm not quite free. Reconciliation can be hard on the thoughts some days. I don't imagine I'd be talking to you if I didn't bet you could understand some of that sentiment.

Quote from: E on May 28, 2020, 10:38:38 AM

Quote from: ಠ_ಠ on May 28, 2020, 12:54:05 AM

That's uh. I don't know man. That's some pretty heavy stuff.

Ah, I know. I saw a lot during those five or so years. That's the worst for what I've personally done. I saw a lot worse coming from other people. I traveled across canada and stopped and turned back when I got to quebec. That was the roughest place I've ever been to, at least in canada. I'm glad to be rid of the streets, although I suppose I'm not quite free. Reconciliation can be hard on the thoughts some days. I don't imagine I'd be talking to you if I didn't bet you could understand some of that sentiment.

In a sense, but being out there for less than a year and having couches to crash on most of the time, even if where I was changing on a daily or weekly basis (sometimes a month if I was lucky, once I was allowed to stay at a mostly vacant house while they looked for a new tenant) I think I really only scratched the surface. But it's like when you go to the steep edge of a mountain where you can see all the way down. I could see how far the fall could potentially be, and I did everything in my power to stop it from happening. I saw a lot. More than I'd ever seen in my lifetime all in that one year. Some people were nice but most people treated me like shit, but I also saw how much worse it could get. Was extremely persistent on staying busy and keeping a roof over my head in whatever capacity, even if it was someone's kitchen or garage.

Learned a lot from passing through so many people's living spaces, actually. 14 off the top of my head that I can think of right now, there's most likely more I'm not remembering. The nicest people were always the ones who were barely getting by themselves. They were always the ones that said they'd love to have me longer but they usually didn't have the space to accommodate me, and I never wanted to overstay my welcome with those people.

I can't understand everything you've been through but I can easily understand the path that would lead a person in that situation to that point. And that's a place I always found quite terrifying. I could still feel the slow creep of losing your humanity. Physically my body was very much in survival mode, but I didn't want my mind to go completely there too. The nights I didn't have anywhere to go were always the darkest. The hopeless feeling of wandering around for hours and hours, eventually giving up and finding a small covered area to pass out on, and waking up 2-4 hours later in incredible pain because my back is kinda shit. Then I think, for most of the other people I pass by that are out there, they're doing this every single night.

There's a disparity then I think in our views of the streets during that time. When I ended up there I don't think I had a notion of being terrified. More than likely I wanted to die, something to finish me off. There was enough of me in the background to keep me alive though, which is why I wandered and did my best to analyze the situations and act as intelligently as I could to self preserve myself.

I can understand the despair though. The longest roads for me where the ones between cities and towns. I had a rule never to hitchhike with anybody, so I walked for the most part, unless I managed to jump a train. I carried a little tent with me. I'd walk a mile or so off the road into cover where I could pitch it for the night. Winters were the worst, because I'd wake up in the dark and I'd be freezing cold before I lit a little propane cookstove. I just remember the awful feeling of dread of realizing that I woke up still alive and that I had hundreds of miles to go before I found another gathering of people. I saw a lot of shitty people and things, but I saw a lot of amazing people and things too.

The funny thing with the homeless is that they've all different views on it. Some of them blamed society and everybody else. A lot of them where people with medical conditions and no treatment centers. And every now and again you'd find one that was content for some reason, simply not wanting anything beyond that. I remember one that I traveled with for some time. She was a remarkably cheery person despite her circumstance.

Rent and bills and college tuition piled too high for her until she went bankrupt and had the rug pulled out from under her feet. Her family had at one point disowned her due to her sexuality. She was wonderful with a few types of instruments though, and took to performing with them to make cash where she could. She traveled with me all the way alberta to ontario. She was remarkably cheerful right up until the end of the road. I didn't sense a hollowness to it either, like you can with some people. She was genuine every moment. But, yes, there's folk out there every day and night, for their own particular reasons.

When Verbatim told me to