What I have learned from being homeless.

This is a blog created to help me get away from homelessness. I am trying to raise funds. If you can help there is paypal link in the right nav bar.
Days now, without running water, 37.
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What I have learned from being homeless.

I know that I have been on this journey for a reason. I know there was something I needed to learn, and I hope I have learned it. I have learned that kindness it the most important and valuable thing in the world, and it doesn’t cost a thing. Kindness has become my religion.

I have learned it is not what happens to you that matters, as much as how you react to it.  Caring for my paralyzed mother didn’t cause my depression. My reaction to caring for my paralyzed mother caused my depression.

I have learned the difference between need and want, and that I need very few possessions, really, to get by. Unlike my previous life, and most “regular” people, I use 100% of my few things 100% of the time. I don’t HAVE things I don’t use.

I have learned that things that look scary are not always so. The same goes for things that look nice.

I have learned, you don’t TRULY need anything you can’t carry, and you will risk much to protect those things.

I have learned to keep moving forward because you really can’t go home again.

I have also learned that the people that will hurt you the most, never meant to hurt you at all, and those people are totally clueless that they have just dealt you a devastating emotional blow. Those people, think they know everything, and they don’t know anything.

When you finally understand that you don’t know, what you don’t know, only then can you be truly understanding and compassionate.

I have learned that if you don’t have TV, which I don’t, and your don’t have internet access, someone has to tell you about the Boston Marathon bombing. Subsequently I learned that I don’t miss the 24 hour news cycle.

I have learned that you cannot gauge nor judge my emotional pain or the depth of my depression any more than I can judge yours, and one’s compassion and empathy towards everyone should reflect that. You can’t accurately describe to me what it is like to give birth any more than I can accurately convey to you the gut-wrenching sadness of feeling disposable. The feeling that, if no one truly cares that I AM here, does it really matter if I stay here, and will it even have mattered that I WAS here.

I believe I am valuable and worth saving. But no man is an island and I have learned that I cannot get out of this alone.  I hope you can help, just a bit. Could you please?

Thanks and blessings – Kathleen