The Glass is Always Half Full
The Glass is Always Half Full
People are funny. They either want to enslave us with our past, or they act as if we have no history. The memory erasers often think that where we are in life is where we have always been. People can’t tell by looking at me that I have seen my fair share of hard days. You see, I don’t believe in wearing my pain on the outside. I also don’t allow my pain to run through my mind chasing my self-esteem. When I was 17, an old man I met in Wilshire Shelter taught me how to journal. She taught me how to let the paper hold my secrets and my dreams. She taught me that in life, pain would come and go, but how I respond to it will determine my future. I never questioned her words. I used them to guide me through many rough days. As a teenager, it would have been easy for me to dismiss her wisdom due to her lot in life. After all, she was homeless, just like me.
When I was 14 years old, my mom was diagnosed with depression. She could no longer hold down a job, cook, clean, or care for me and my two little brothers. I do not know if something triggered my mother’s depression or a condition that she hid for years. The only thing that I understood was that my mother was sad all the time and that my brothers and I had become her burden. Unlike many families with aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, we didn’t have any of those. My mother had been estranged from her family before I was born. From my understanding, my grandparents didn’t approve of my mother dating a white man, so she and my father left everything they knew for love. My parents were only married long enough to make me. My two younger brothers shared a father that died on a snowy corner in January before they could walk.
The first two years of my mother’s diagnosis were up and down. She was great when she took her medication and absented from life when she didn’t. It was during her absence that I had to grow up quicker than a young man should. I do not know what it is about older men and their ability to spot vulnerably young, but I was red meat. I did many things during those first two years that need not be itemized. I did what I had to do for my family. I did not want us in the system. I did not want my mother to be hospitalized, but my wants were not enough.
On June 18, 2005, my mother tried to kill herself, and my brothers, and I were separated and put in foster care. I bounced around to different foster homes for a year before I found my way to Wilshire Shelter. Some people may think that living in a shelter had to be one of the lowest points in my life, but it was there that I rediscovered myself, safety, and devotion. The men in the shelter took it upon themselves to cover me with love, guidance, and acceptance. They fought to protect me from my demons. It was in the shelter that, I received my GED, got on public housing, learned how to win custody of my brothers, and to take care of my mother’s health. Today, I am far removed from Wilshire Shelter, but I will never forget how that place saved me.