homeless

Sun 6.20.22,

It’s been a month since I last posted in the journal.  I’ve had my site for 24 years, and never in those 24 years have I missed a Sunday of writing something in the journal.  My last posting occurred on May 22.  On the next day I became homeless.  I woke up on the 23rd to find my phone was in trouble; I hurried over to T Mobile and spent most of the day at their store choosing a new phone, etc., etc.  When I got home around 3 or 4 I found the lock had been changed to my apartment   I had in my possession the clothes on my back, my pocketbook and the new phone.  I walked out of the building in shock, then pulled myself together and called a cab.  I explained my situation to the driver and he took me to a hotel.  For the next 3, 4 days I walked about the city  getting my needs met helter-skelter, staying in 250 to 300 dollar per night hotels at night, then binging on their free breakfasts in the morning, stuffing my bag with all the muffins and donuts that would fit in it on my way out.  I lost about ten pounds in those first few days and  getting sick; my lungs filled with phlegm that wouldn’t clear, unsteady on my feet.  Homeless people don’t have a refrigerator they can go to for a snack.  Everything has to be purchased.  I sought advice from the homeless about places to stay.  They gave me a lot of leads that obviously did not turn out, else they would have been taken by the homeless themself.  

On the fourth day I hired a moving company and got my stuff out and placed it in storage.   I had to get out of Portland as I was bleeding money like an open sore.  Before moving to Portland I had lived in Camden for two years and I liked it, so decided with the help of a dream encouraging me to do so to go back there.  Camden being a rich folk town, I decided on its neighbor, Rockland, the art capital of Maine.  But alas, this being a tourist coastal Mecca, the hotels were in the same price range as Portland.  On my first night in town after securing a hotel room, I treated myself to a prime rib roast dinner, the first full meal in a couple of weeks.  I stayed at  one hotel for 3 nights, then another for 2.  I was becoming desperate and panicky, my money was running out and I couldn’t find a home.  The place I had lived at in the past was managed by the same company that evicted me and . . . 

To be continued.