Well, I made it. Thanks so much to everyone who helped me along the way, whether financially, or helping to put a roof over my head while I was out on my butt, or just by calling to check on me and make sure I was still alive. As is my custom, I won't be naming any names of individuals, or amounts - not everyone appreciates having their name published in that context - but there are a couple of organizations I need to thank, if for no other reason than my badly damaged brain cells will lose them.
This is, after all, my web log ;-).
There are dozens of stories to tell and there are some organizations that I would like to publicly thank for their help. Ironically, given my basic view of religion and religions, the path to each of them and indeed the beginning of the idea that I could actually GET home, started and was assisted all the way by churches and family....the two last places I'd have looked. I really don't "believe" in looking to either one for assistance. Maybe it's a pride thing. But:
Beyond the assistance of my friends and family, these four organizations helped me financially and has finally shown me first-hand something good about organized religion.
The proverbial 'sign' if you will.
Now don't worry, ol' JH isn't going to get all OMGJESUS on you or anything. Not my style. I think it's important to note that the assistance came from three different religions...four if you count some relatives who are hardcore seventh-day adventists. I got to The Road Home via the Mormons.
I will say this, though. The events of the last couple of weeks have definitely shaken my devoted cynicism.
I've still got plenty to say, and I'm not going to stop saying it, but I'm glad that I've had this experience from which to draw lessons about life, people, God, and so forth. It'll be a long time - maybe the rest of my life - really exploring it all, but I'm glad I had it nonetheless.
This, of course, does not let the folks who did the things that put me here off the hook.
Sidebar to 'get a job' boy whose post I approved earlier: The hell, you think I wasn't looking? Do you have any idea how hard it is to find work when your address is General F'n Delivery? I'd been in CA for three weeks in the worst economy the nation's seen in decades. What jobs there are, are few and far between. Because I lack a degree (and I take full responsibility for that), I have substantially more difficulty landing the jobs I'm qualified for; so much so that I went into business for myself in 2002. I'm damned good at what I do, and getting better all the time, but part of the reason I wanted to leave Oxford is that there's not enough clientele out there, and not enough supportive resources to 'keep me going.'
Originally, the idea - correction, what I was told and/or agreed to - was that I was languishing badly in NC, to the point of constant depression. These folks offered to bring me out to CA and put a roof over my head long enough for me to get on my feet. This didn't come out of nowhere; they've been asking me for...jeez, close to a year now anyway. I specifically had the conversation with them: you understand this could mean I'm surfing your couch for three, maybe even six months? Absolutely. No problem.
After three weeks I was out on my ass. Three thousand miles from home, nowhere to go, the room I was living in doesn't even exist anymore. No money, no immediate income, no resources but a van, and all the crap in it including this computer and what business records I have of my life, along with my clothes, my camcorder, and my camera which are all the tools I use to make money. Selling any one of them would be like cutting off my own foot to make a given weight class in a marathon.
To their credit, the folks I was staying with did give me some money - less than $100 - when I left. I firmly believe that I could have challenged this 'eviction,' but why would I want to? I did nothing wrong, did my best to consume as little as possible and stay out of the way, and was working on my own projects, including client work that was paying me or had been paid for. I was never actually asked to find a job until a couple of days before all this went down, and even then we were talking three, four more weeks - long enough to get some cash for a place of my own. Within five days of that conversation - five days during which I immediately set to looking for work - I was living in my van.
Anyone who thinks that being homeless is cheap, easy, or self-inflicted by definition has never been there. Have I made mistakes in my life, done things I regret? Sure. But I've always tried to be generous and friendly and available and all the other things that decent folks are supposed to be, too. If you think living on the streets - especially sittingi n a van full of gear that's worth a few rocks to the average crackhead, but priceless and irreplaceable to you, with no income, no gas, VERY limited food and other resources, and no damned clue what to do next. Even if I got an interview, it would be hit-or-miss as to whether I'd have the gas to get there, and there was nothing particularly close.
I continued applying for jobs. If I'd been able to stay in CA long enough, I'd have had one. I have a very nice little resume. But I couldn't find work fast enough, and the best tools I have to even get piecework from craigslist or something is this computer, my camcorder, my camera, and my time and skills.
Without the ability to use those, the best I could have hoped for was to spend a lot of time washing dishes - about the ONLY thing I didn't apply for, up to and including walmart, convenience stores, etc. - and continuing to live in my van, unable to sleep for nerves and anger and fear, all of which were well-grounded in reality and well-justified.
It is not a lifestyle I would recommend for the outdoor living enthusiast.
Part of the reason I bother speaking to you, Mr. Getajob, is that I still fully intend to put together a documentary about the homeless and how they got there and bring the humanity from them so that people can connect with them. One great truth I saw out there was this, and please understand that I say this without condemnation, but: the friends most likely to have helped me through this are also those most likely to have understood it, at least in part, through their own life experience. They are also the friends who can afford it the least.
That's not some pithy, sniping "evil rich" routine. It's just the observation I've made. It may well be just as true that those friends made the donation necessary to put those gas vouchers into my pocket or whatever, and that's fine. But when you are really SCREWED and up against the wall and you are calling in favors that you're not even owed and trapped and near hopeless...it's the friends and family who have been there and are often still close who will be quickest to help you out if you need it, in my experience.
Maybe if I can get into the humanity of it for people, it will make a dent somewhere. The reason I'm talking about all of this, now, is to provide a conduit through which perhaps more people could understand what it's really like out there and be moved to help in some way. Eventually I'm going to have tons of material here, and hopefully enough footage to get a decent 90-minute documentary out of it. People need to see this and understand what this is, what it's like.
I was dismissed by people who suggested I go camp in a national park, knowing full well that I didn't even have the money to make it TO the national park, let alone what I was supposed to do from way out there about finding work. I frankly believe they're both naive enough to believe that advice and less than $100 was enough to live on. Survive, maybe, but look for work? Work myself? Pfft. How?
The right thing to do would have been to live up to their word: give me time to get my feet under me. The definition of that may have needed to change because they didn't realize what feeding and housing another human being costs, and that's fine - if that had been said, I could have easily worked with it and stayed out there and made it just fine, no hard feelings.
What actually happened was we went from "you can stay here for three to six months" to "you can stay here for three more weeks" to "you can stay here for four more days" to "you gotta leave tomorrow" in the space of five days. At no time did anyone even suggest that my own behavior was in any way responsible for that change in plans. I've not decided exactly how much I want to discuss openly about the details, but suffice it to say that I was constantly reassured that it 'wasn't my fault' and so forth.
Well, until I broached the subject of a thirty-day written notice, at which point I was accused of being unethical and a bad friend. But that's another story entirely.
Either way: I'm out of there and now I'm here, and it's back to work, and that work includes things like processing all the photos from the trip, posting a bunch, etc. etc. I've got client work that needs caught up on, and I've got production on my own work to do, as well as whatever happens regarding more footage for my documentary. As my resources to pursue this footage are rather slim, I'll do what I can as I can, as well as looking for piecework and potential new clients in the area, WHILE applying to every job for which I am qualified.
Whether my definition of 'qualified' matches the employer's definition of 'qualified' depends of course on the employer and what they're looking for that gets garbled between department, employer, recruiter, and job posting. We'll see what happens, and in the mean time until I find a decent job - decent enough to live on - I'll continue working on the things I've been working on.
Happy Independence Day ;-)