Funny, you don't LOOK Homeless...

I get that a lot. I tell someone I am homeless and they look me up one side and down the other and say, "Hmm, that's funny. You don't look homeless." As if there was a "look". Because my hair is not greasy, because I shower at least once a day, because I am wearing clean clothes, I don't have the "homeless look", whatever that is. And just in case you are wondering, there certainly is nothing funny about being homeless. In fact, it sucks.
When I was in my early 20's, I thought it would be cool to "suffer" for my art. I was going to be a rock star then. I needed to feel the pain of the down and out person in order to write about it, correct? I mean, didn't Bruce Springsteen suffer for his work? Didn't he know people who worked in factories and then were laid off only to become alcoholics because they no longer had any dignity? So I spent a week sleeping in my car. In Reno, NV. In the winter. It only lasted a week because I knew far too many people that insisted I stay with them. And I was cold. No songs came out of that week, just an appreciation for civilization.
Fast forward to 2012. I am now in my mid to late 40's, not near as spry or adventurous as my 20-year-old self was. Yet, I find myself without a home. I have a place to stay, but it is not home. I share a house with 5 other women. I share a room with a woman who has been through hell and back. I have to write my name on anything that is mine, though that doesn't always stop people in the house from stealing.  I have taken to putting blood on the ends of my toilet paper roll so no one else will use it. Yes, I share a house with five other women, all older than me except for my former roommate. Yet they-the ones in their 50's-are the ones I have to protect my belongings from. If I complain about the theft, and I have, I am told there are plenty of other women waiting to take my spot and if I don't like it I can leave. But they know I can't leave, otherwise I would.
When you are homeless, everyone else holds the cards and you are stuck with the joker. And he isn't wild.

But I am doing what I can to keep up the spirits. Looking through rose-colored glasses because one day I know I will be free from Uncle Sam's Plantation.