I had been on a path leading nowhere since December of 2005; out of work since December of 2007; and living on charity since December 2009, with no unemployment benefit, transportation, suitable clothing, or county relief. Perhaps the worst part of it all was being reviled by former friends.
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| I thank Heaven for Social Security |
Proficient in the domestic arts thanks to my mother, I could sometimes persuade area innkeepers to accept my housekeeping services in trade for a private room, hot shower, cup of coffee, etc.--sometimes for weeks on end. These were the best of times then, for even making a few beds and scrubbing a few toilets lent a note of stakeholdership to a life that had otherwise lost its grip.
Despite my fallen state, I remarried. My second wife was a lovely playmate, but one that often compounded my problems, sometimes with a telling glee. We could live together for no more than a week or two at a stretch in some motel, before one of us would fall into a bad way. She could return to the home of her parents, but I had nowhere to return but area homeless shelters to retrench--refuge she would sometimes work from a distance to undermine by telephonically antagonizing the shelter personnel until they had no choice but put me out or go ga-ga. By March of 2011, my psyche was shot, and when a person gets sniped at enough, he or she will fall dead or go underground.
I appealed to my son, who came charging to the rescue. He retrieved me from my latest conjugal falling-out, and drove me some distance to the small Iowa town where he then was working. He found me an empty room in a small motel owned by his employer. Although I wasn't to remain long in that motel room, my son slipped me into a different room in the same area, in the apartment of one of his coworkers, enabling me to stay put for almost four years.
The man into whose motel I had first been delivered is one of Iowa's unsung heroes, a man of many business and civic interests, always in motion. He gave me work as a housekeeper at his motel, paying me $10 a room. That cash came with his friendship, meals, medications, use of car, and time to reconstruct myself without stressing each night where I was to sleep that night. I remained there for 48 months, and managed to accomplish a couple of things I should have done long ago. So bless them all, Children of the Goddesshead.
The man into whose motel I had first been delivered is one of Iowa's unsung heroes, a man of many business and civic interests, always in motion. He gave me work as a housekeeper at his motel, paying me $10 a room. That cash came with his friendship, meals, medications, use of car, and time to reconstruct myself without stressing each night where I was to sleep that night. I remained there for 48 months, and managed to accomplish a couple of things I should have done long ago. So bless them all, Children of the Goddesshead.
I passed my 62nd birthday in April of 2014, and began to collect Social Security. My situation has eased considerably, although it remains tenuous as I gather up the remains of a shattered life and try to reshape them into something resembling a writer's experience--glosses on suffering, oddly transformed and offered here under Blogger's "Homeless Like Me" imprimatur.
Best regards,
HL Teabury
no longer "Homeless T"
no longer "Homeless T"