So....where have I been for two years?
Living life, letting life live me.
Learning, losing, hurting, again...Living life.
In these two years, I've yet again lost everything. (My fault.)
But...
I. HAVE. GAINED. SO. MUCH. MORE.
More wisdom, more patience, more empathy, more friends.
My ability to walk, such as it was is almost gone.
We knew this was coming, but it still hurts when there is something that I used to easily do that I can't do anymore. Or when I forget how it feels to do something, like just walk into a store...without worrying if my chair is going to fit.
So...what has happened in these two years?
I got an apartment, lived there for an entire year!!!
It wasn't for me, became homeless again...got another apartment, and because of harassment and a very dangerous living situation provided by the apartment manager, I left everything I owned and became homeless again. (More on that story in a bit.)
I have had such loss these past two years. Sometimes, I think it's more than I can handle...but I am surviving.
My dad died on June 4, 2021. My lovely sister made it to where I couldn't be there when he died. (Gotta love family right?)
Nine days later, on June 13, 2021, my mom died. Again, my lovely sister made it to where I couldn't be there when she died. (Man...my family sux sometimes!)
In less than two weeks, I lost my whole world. And I still haven't recovered from that. I don't think I ever will.
I wandered around for a while, homeless again. This was before the second apartment. And, started on a journey that is continuing to this day.
When I got that second apartment, things were good. Then they fired the office staff and brought someone else in. That's when things got really bad. I endeded up getting threatened and harassed so much that I walked away from everything I own for my own safety. Packed up what I could, and left to live on the streets.
The next day, I spent some time at the library...where I saw this guy sitting there reading on his phone. The head of the library helped me out by calling one of the accessibility coordinators for the City of Killeen, who immediately came to see me. Then, she helped me file charges against the maintenance person at my apartments who was threatning me. Then this wonderful lady helped me get into the homeless shelter in Killeen, Friends in Crisis. (I can not express enough thanks and gratitude for them.)
I was told to be there at 1:00 PM, and since I had no car, I wheeled over there from the library, which was only a couple of blocks. There, I knocked on the door and was told I had to wait until 3:00 PM when they let everyone in and then they would do my intake. To my utter surprise, that very same gentleman came walking up and got in line. And, he started talking to me...with something along the lines of "weren't you at the library earlier?" This started the path to something that I had been scared of for the past seven years since I divorced my husband.
That wonderful man is now my boyfriend. He now works at Tesla in Austin, and he treats me so wonderfully that I wonder if this is a dream.
We moved in together. If you know me, you know that I follow my gut feelings, and my gut said this person, named Jacob, was there for me. At first, I kept telling him that I didn't want a relationship...after all I had been on my own for SEVEN YEARS!! I was fine on my own.
But...I wasn't. I never knew that it could feel this good to be in a relationship. That this is what happiness is like. This is a new experience for both of us. We both arrived at the shelter so broken. We're both learning how to have a healthy relationship...but we're doing it.
