Honestly, this looks way more fun than Christmas in my family growing up. I'm sure plenty of you have similar backgrounds. I hated all holidays growing up, they were always times of heavily elevated drama, where I wished I could hide under a rock until they were over.
We are now 9 days from Christmas, and 15 days from the end of 2020, the year that pretty much everybody has been complaining about. Yes, it's been crazy, but in my life, 2020 just barely makes it in the top ten worst years of the 21st century. Actually, since I have a room to live in for the time being, I think 2020 is down to about the 17th worst year of the last 20. Seriously, most of the past 20 years have been far worse than 2020 in my life. 2020 was nuts in March and April, but overall, it's been more fun that most.
By the beginning of September 2020, I had been homeless, at some level (there are many), for 12 of the last 21 years, and lived fully on the streets for a total 4 full years. I was working, full time, or well beyond "full time" (40 hours/week), for about 8 of those 12 years. No drugs. No alcohol. I had a bunch of other bullshit going on. I did struggle with depression for quite a while, but that was because I was living in North Carolina (aka Hell), I couldn't find any job, and living with my mom. My family has come to the conclusion that my mom probably suffers from severe Borderline Personality Disorder, and a few other lesser disorders. To put that into context, if Satan had an evil mother-in-law that drove him crazy, she would have severe borderline disorder. So the most depressing time of my life, by far, was when I had a free place to live. People think homelessness is one of the worst things that can happen to a person. Living homeless really sucks, but there are worse fates. Being a homeless struggling artist was much better than being a lazy guy sitting on her couch watching bad game shows, getting nagged, belittled, and berated all day, every day. Crazy as it sounds, becoming homeless was a step up.
Being the futurist/economic geek that I am, I knew the economy was going to crash in 2020, I predicted the February stock crash in a blog post in late January. I have blogged about it for a couple of years. But I didn't know Covid-19 would be the black swan event that did it. I did not see a 100 year pandemic coming. Bill Gates made that call a few years ago, and I wasn't listening.
As a homeless guy in the L.A. area last spring, myself, and all homeless people, were basically left outside to die, when that first shutdown happened. The fast food places and the library, things my life depended on, were shut down. Nearly all of the public restrooms I (and many other homeless people and traveling working people) used every day, closed. The places I charged my phone (when I could afford to turn it on), and my laptop, closed. When 90% of the places you go to the bathroom close down, life gets real sketchy in a matter of hours, not days or weeks.
I spent 7 months, during a 100 year pandemic, sitting in obscure places to charge my laptop, then taking a bus somewhere else to pirate wifi, so I could blog, and do social media, to try and keep selling some artwork, to stay alive.
At one point, I got really sick, went to the hospital, and spent a day and a half in a covid room, because I was suspected to have the virus. I had no contact with anyone in my life then. So If I would have died, I would have simply disappeared. It turned out to be a bad bacterial infection, showing up as pneumonia and cellulitis. Bad, but much better than having the virus. I kept going, and with a lot of help from some people who bought some artwork, and from food stamps, I survived. The great irony, that we began to figure out months later, is that us homeless people, living outside, were actually far less likely to catch Covid than most "normal" people, stuck in the house with their families. Going to a shelter, became one of the most dangerous things to do. Like everybody's grandma used to say, "The Lord works in mysterious ways."
Here's the crazy thing, I finally qualified for pandemic unemployment insurance, and now have some money to work with. That allowed me to get an expensive "cheap" motel room, and gives me a shot at getting my life back on track. A shot. It's not even close to a slam dunk. At a time when nearly every small business in this country is struggling to simply survive, I have to start, build, and get a small business running, in 90 days or so, and make enough money to live off of, immediately. That's about how long I can keep a roof over my head, unless I find a better scenario.
In 21 years of struggling in and out of homelessness, this is actually the best situation I've been in since 2000. My family wouldn't loan me enough money to have a fighting chance at making a decent living when I was back east. They were not obligated to, but it just kept me struggling for those 11 years. Many friends have helped me out, but at a level that helped me survive a bit longer and keep fighting. No one with the means to help me really start over, wanted to loan me enough money to do that. And I get it, I've been struggling for a long time, and couldn't really explain why. A lot of really crazy shit has happened, and for most of the last 21 years, simply surviving was the best I could manage. I should be dead... seriously... like 6 or 7 times over. I've survived a near head on car crash, 3 meetings with mountain lions, and 3 or 4 serious cases of cellulitis/MRSA infection. Instead of being dead, I'm fat, my teeth are all broken, and I have sold artwork to 6 of the 7 continents somehow. That's a win, under the circumstances. I'm still alive a kickin'.
I can tell you right now, 2021 will be crazier, on a Big Picture/economic level, than 2020 was. But the vaccine will eventually get us past the pandemic era (I'm guessing by September/October next year, not March). That will make day to day life much better for most people. A lot of people will be a lot worse off financially, then. A much smaller number of people will be much better off. Most people will still be struggling paycheck to paycheck, and a lot more of those "paychecks" will be government checks.
There are times when the Universe, or Life itself, puts you through the ringer, for an extended period of time. This happens in many different ways to different people. In the creative world, we often call this "paying your dues." Life kicked my ass for about 20 years, just to see if I was serious about being a creative guy, and about trying to do something worthwhile (by my standards) in the world. Call it an extended test by Life (or the Universe) itself. Surviving nine months, living on the streets, during a 100 year pandemic, was my PhD thesis in survival.
Then life said, "OK, you've proven you're one crazy, determined, creative motherfucker, now get to work!" For three weeks now, I've been decompressing from that extended test by life, and I'm now working on publishing myfirst (of many, I hope) ebooks. This one's about the Old School BMX days in the 1980's. Many other ebooks, and other creative works, will follow, I hope.
I will, in all likelihood, spend Christmas alone, very happily, in a small motel room, eating too much, watching some TV, and working on the next ebook, or maybe a drawing. To me, after the last couple of decades, that's an awesome Christmas. I will keep creating words, drawings, videos, and other things, as long as I can. I have a mile long list of potential projects in my head. That's what I do. Since I passed Life's extended test, I think Life may help me out a bit more from now on. We'll see.
I'd like to say a huge thanks to everyone who has helped me out, in one way or another, several people bought drawings, others loaned me a bit at some point. I owe some of you some money, and I'm working to create a steady income, so I can do just that, as soon as possible. If I pay everyone right now, then I'm homeless again in a couple weeks, and hitting you all up to buy little BMX drawings, for food money. And let's face it, nobody wants that. Ebooks are much cheaper, and we all get more bang for our buck. And I have a shitload of stories, and thoughts on many subjects. I'm still up for commission drawings, but I've shifted focus to writing at the moment.
So that's where I'm at right now. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kickin' Kwanzaa, Freaky Festivus, whatever. Do the best to enjoy the holidays, and I know most people will ring in the New Year with more stoke than ever. Most of all, do something creative when you can, and be cool to other humans, even the douchebags, I think their time is running out soon, anyhow.
No comments:
Post a Comment