Broken (&) Home(less)

 "Mom, I can buy us some blankets from Bed Bath & Beyond if we have to sleep outside."

I reached for the Velcro wallet in my back pocket. I was prepared to fish out the $50 gift card my grandparents had sent me for Christmas when my mother defensively retorted,

"Brittney, we're not sleeping outside tonight."

This very stern and seemingly annoyed response came after I had already seen her in tears over using her last 2 quarters on a payphone to make a phone call to the friend we came to the mall with--the friend whom we thought had left us stranded. 

Luckily, after being in a state of panic for about an hour, we found that friend in the Mission Valley Mall parking lot and I got to sleep in a bed--or maybe on a floor or a couch. Either way, we went to a home.

My memory has a tendency to fail me as is what happens with trauma, but I believe I was around 9(?) years old during this specific incident. Before that, we'd already lived with 4 different family friends, all of whom had kicked us out at some point and some of which invited us back after a year or two. If we weren't living with family friends, we were in a hotel. One night, we, a family of 4 (Mom, Mom's boyfriend, my brother, and I), settled down in a two-door sports car. The nice thing about the car was that I had the entire back seat, which was the comfiest spot, while someone else slept on the floor of the back seat and the other two were in the front seats sitting mostly upright. I also got to wake up with the sunrise and an owl hooting in a nearby tree that next morning. It was the closest thing I'd had to serene in those 24 hours leading up to that moment.

I have to admit, for being homeless, we were damn lucky to be in San Diego of all places. We never did have to sleep under the stars, but at least the weather would've been nice if we did.

I took this photo in Coronado when I visited San Diego for the first time in 4.5 years in 2017. The setting was so surreal to how I felt, and I especially think it's ironic that the boat says "Amnesia" on the back.

The hotel nights in Temecula were interesting. We would renew our stay after a few nights and found ourselves shaking the vending machines for a few treats that we couldn't have afforded otherwise--something I strictly opposed then and still do now but would give in to temptation once candy was presented in front of me as a child. A renewal of our stay once resulted in a bed that had been made after housekeeping failed to notice the previous guests had pissed in it. That was a fun surprise.

One night, in one of those rooms, I remember writing an essay on volcanoes when we all became very hungry. My mother tried calling her boyfriend, who was nowhere to be seen or heard, because she had left her wallet in his car. She was brought to tears again, a sight in which I was partially desensitized to at this point, when she couldn't get ahold of him for the better part of an hour. 

"I'm going to have to go to the KFC and beg for food!" She cried. 

I laugh now. It's not funny but also it's hilarious. Rest assured, we ate that night when the boyfriend showed up out of nowhere cracking jokes and telling everyone to relax.

Maybe you feel sad reading this, but I promise there's light at the end of this entry.

 

Not a single photo in my possession gives any indication of what we were going through.

Homelessness was, needless to say, quite rough. My family went homeless when I was 8, and we didn't have a place to call our own until I was about 11 when my mother's Narcissism presented itself more outwardly as a coping strategy for all the pain we'd been through. Before that, I lived a rather comfortable childhood. So strange how one moment you have everything, and nothing the next.

What I really want to address here, though, is my adult feelings about this particular phase of my life.

After being adopted at 17 by my grandparents (yes, the same ones that gifted me the $50 that might've kept us warm and comfortable that night had we slept under the stars), and moving out of San Diego, I became so detached from these experiences. For years, it almost felt like I never lived that life--the unpredictable kind where you don't know where your next meal will come from. I became an honor student in my last year of high school which carried on into college. I didn't know shit about correct grammar or what the hell "MLA format" meant. However, I pushed myself to learn because I wanted to go to college and be the first in my family to do so under traditional means.

I gained weight, I had new clothes whenever I needed them, and I was gifted an actual car which I scarcely had access to growing up so learning to drive was a little nerve-wracking. I was surrounded by people who loved me on their terms and I wanted my terms to agree with theirs, so I began to change myself.

A couple months before (left) versus a few months after (right) getting adopted. Note the torn up boots which I attempted to mend with duct tape. I wasn't homeless anymore, just poor.

I've struggled with this part of myself for many years. I've tried to mold myself into what I thought was "normal." I used to dream of writing memoirs, inspired by the beloved Frank McCourt, but I allowed the "arrogance" narrative to reside permanently in my head after being told by various influences that there's nothing special or interesting about writing about yourself. Evidently, there's only arrogance in such self-considerations, and I let myself believe that so long as I'm not arrogant, I don't reference the sources of my trauma, and I actively blend in with society, I could be "normal." If I was "normal," I could fit in with some kind of group or community. If I could fit in with some kind of group or community, I would feel "loved."

As a result, I tore pages out of my life. Luckily, nothing is lost forever, and those pages turn up in random places--quiet moments on the road, a nostalgic song playing overhead in a grocery store, or while reflecting back on my deepest sources of pain as I see someone else's struggles.

Therefore, it is so that I wish to be arrogant and write about my life and experience in oh so arrogant hopes that it could help you, Reader. It's okay to be arrogant sometimes, right? At least that's what my therapist said.

I therefore invite your nosiness with open arms, Reader, as it relieves my anxiety around being arrogant. I can now proudly say that I am an open book whose pages are still slowly being taped messily back in.

"You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace." 

                                                                                               - Frank McCourt

Song played while writing: Half Moon - Blind Pilot