Once again....

And yet I am still confused as to how the ways of people are. It seems that people lack one of the most important of life's necessities....common sense. It doesn't matter if one is educated or not...in fact it has nothing to do with the intelligence quotient. It has to do with common sense. thinking things through logically. ANd on that note.... Evangelists in the streets giving out those little pamphlets claiming that all they are doing is talking about Jesus. But they are the first ones who are quick to judge someone if someone passes them by and refuses to have those pamphlets shoved in their faces. In the legal sense those women who are in the corners with those pamphlets are discriminating others and their right to free religion. We as American citizens have a right to choose whether or not we want religion in our lives. IN fact there are many states who have adopted this federal right.

Starting all over again

It's been a while since I've last written. Much has happened since then as is usually the case. Last year, February of 2012, I was evicted from my apartment,I resigned from my job, and my daughter had decided to make out in the world alone. It was deeply traumatic for me. It wasn't as if I lived the high life. I had been thinking of leaving my job for a while and had wanted my daughter to go out there into the world and experience life on her own terms. I'd struggled for many, many years to keep my head afloat and to support my daughter. It had been me and her against the world for a long time and something that I became accustomed to. I'd done it for so long that when I lost everything I didn't, and still don't, know what to do with myself. It's taken me over twelve months to come to the realization that now is when I can do anything that I've ever wanted to do. I'm still not accustomed to having a husband but at least I'm not alone in this period of my life. However, I've been pretty tough on him too. I took these loses to heart so much that I had to be medicated to be able to balance out the anger that I felt with the crushing, debilitating depression that would hold me down for much of this year. I honestly felt that I was going to go insane. Now I face yet another challenge....what to do? Do I want a career or just a job that will help pay the bills? How the hell am I going to make it out of this shelter? What do I do? Everyday I have to take care not to go overboard with my thoughts and I have to gauge emotional reactions. I think about a lot of things now that I have that time on my hands. I've even thought about my marriage and if my husband is the man for me. This is a totally different experience unlike any other. I've never felt so alone, lonely, afraid, and very, very angry. Of course, the process to get into the shelter system doesn't help. I resigned from my job because I felt it would have taken too much time to resolve this shelter process and I was right. Dealing with DHS and HRA is like being in a domestic violence relationship. They ask questions they don't care to hear the answer to, they cut off your income like their shutting off the light whenever they feel like it, so you have to keep going back and forth just to get some food on the table. HRA expects you to return to work, even if you've lost every bit of clothing you had. they expect you to work for minimum wage and get out of the shelter system with that. Plus there are hygienic expenses, household expenses, restaurant expenses, etc., because the shelter does not allow residents to cook. My moral values have also experienced some sort of trauma. Doing the right thing is very uncommon when your suddenly thrust into poverty. Lying becomes the norm. My husband has had to beg, borrow and steal just to bring me a meal at the end of the day, or a roll of toilet paper. The shelters themselves are filled mostly with people who are physically disabled (for real), those who fake a disability, drug addicts and pushers, alcoholics, and felons. I have heard many a shelter experience that is not cool at all. When I go to the bathroom, since its a shared bathroom, I take clorox cleanup, or lysol wipes, everytime. The bathrooms are usually dirty, hell, filthy. People take their shits in the bathtub, on the floor, on the toilet lid. I've seen period on the walls and crabs just jumping around stuck to their hair shafts. It's disgusting. It's so bad that I've taken up peeing in a cup in my room and only using the bathroom when I have to bathe or take a shit. It's embarrasing. In the shelter where I live with my husband, the rooms are mostly single occupancy rooms. The shelters here in New York are housed in hotels and some are still operable hotels, like the one I'm staying in. The difference, however, is that the shelter side is not allowed to have cable, air conditioning, hot plates, microwaves, pretty much nothing of comfort. There is heat in the winter, but the summers are a living hell. Your not supposed to cook, but rules are made to be broken, therefore 98% of the people here have hotplates and microwaves. If people come here to help, they do it half-heartedly. We've had a job developer come to the shelter, but he didn't even know how to do a resume and seemed to burn out after the first week of being here. The Relief bus comes once a week, on Thursdays, but they preach a lot and only serve hot soup and drinks. They have been more of a help than anyone I've come across since I've entered the shelter system. Then there is my husband. Young and somewhat impressionable, he's into hanging out in front of the building, come rain, snow, heat wave, etc. He enjoys getting high, which is what most people do here, and is just as depressed about this situation as I am. He insists that he doesn't want me to work, but I cannot live on welfare alone. It's just not me. We get on our nerves a lot. That's why he's always out and I'm always in. He tries to be as patient with me as I am with him, but sometimes the whole situation becomes overwhelming, and I'm still coming out of this deep depression. And now I'm at a cross roads. I don't have the emotional, mental, and social backup that a person in my predicament needs, so finding the motivation to get up everyday and do something is very difficult. I've spent many days inside this prison, while my husband has tried in vain to get me to go outside even for five minutes. Depression is very debilitating. It really is hard starting over especially when you've got to start at zero. It isn't impossible, I know, it's just very hard. I figure that there must be a reason for all of this, that one day I will look back on these times and breathe a sigh of relief because it would be over. But right now, today, at this moment, it's not over. Right now my immediate problem is lack of motivation. I know that there is a pattern I should be following...or maybe a pattern I should be creating from scratch. There is something that I should be doing yet the roads to take are many. How do I create a road of my own? How do I find the motivation to keep going, to get out of bed and do something...anything? This is where I'm at now.