Day 15

Day 15: Has it ended yet?

I was awake at just before six this morning, lying in my sleeping bag, looking out at a clear sky from the doorway at St John's Church, Ranmoor in Sheffield. I tucked my shoulders into the bag because it was cold. Today I can go home but I instead of elation I feel drained and empty.

I have no sense of achievement or satisfaction. I realised that if this was the last day of an adventure, walking the Pennine Way or something like that, I may be sad that was over but I’d be taking away a trophy of some kind, an objective completed and enjoyed. I haven’t enjoyed this fourteen days. 

I’ve loved meeting wonderful people at the end of the day. And I’ve made some new friends. But homelessness got into my head and body and that’s a horrible experience.

On Friday afternoon I had a low. It wasn’t a surprise. It happened most days but that day I texted my wife:
“I just need to say this to someone, I don’t want you to come and get me, but I’ve had enough. I don’t want to sleep out tonight, I don’t want to speak to another group, I want to be at home in a comfortable chair, falling asleep. I don’t want to walk the remaining 25 minutes. I just want to stop.”

It was Friday, though I’d lost track of the days, but there was no Friday feeling because, being homeless, there is no weekend. 

My wife phoned me and verbally picked me up and pushed me forward. Is that what I have done for 17 years? Is that what we do as essential services? Is that the foundation which allows health care, mental health care and other services to do their vital work? Maybe. Sometimes people tell us, “Without you I would be dead!” I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated that as much as I do at this moment in time.

Meeting people in the evenings has kept me going. Vital human contact, not a nod of hello as you pass someone on the street, but conversation, stimulation, companionship. Without that I don’t know where my head would be? Without it, would the way I feel about myself be so much worse? I suspect so.

Yesterday I walked past a little Sainsbury’s in a nice middle-class suburb. I intended to go in but a man was stood by the door with his dog and I thought he looked at me with disdain. It was enough for me to carry on walking. As I walked away, I laughed at myself. I could have stared at him with equal disdain, but I had felt judged. I had felt as though I didn’t belong and even though I do, because I’m not homeless, homelessness was in my head.

To help us to continue to work with people from sleeping bag to employment please consider setting up a regular monthly donation through the link below https://www.justgiving.com/cathedralarcherproject

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 11

Image
Day 11: Lest we forget.. It’s 5.52am and I’ve had a fairly good sleep. Lying here in the beautiful doorway of St Mary's - Ecclesfield , a cloudy moon is alone in the sky. When I went to sleep the sky was full of stars. I don’t know their names.   If Gav was here he might tell me something about constellations. He died in 2020 after years of alcohol abuse. When I first knew him, sometimes passed out on the Cathedral grass, I couldn’t have guessed at the intelligence that filled his head. I wouldn’t have guessed the horrors either. The violent death he witnessed, the rejection by his stepdad, the journey into the care system which didn’t work for him, the loss of a daughter and so the story goes on. This doorway is poignant too. The last time I was here was for the funeral of K. Twenty years of military service, three stripes on his arm and enough trauma to sink a battleship. He used the Archer Project for just a few months. In that time we saw the two sides, a joy and ze
Read more

Afterthoughts 3

Image
14 nights but I still don’t know what homelessness is like for women During my fortnight on the streets, several women said to me that if they were to sleep rough there would be, as one woman put it, “an extra layer of vulnerability”. I realised I hadn’t ever considered the risk of a sexual attack. I’ve known men who have been sexually abused whilst rough sleeping, but they seem isolated incidents. I never considered it could happen to me. Women seemed to consider it automatically.  I am uncomfortable writing this blog. A 57-year-old man sharing insights into being female and homeless? The reality is that I’m admitting my ignorance. After 17 years I thought I knew the issues of female homelessness. I probably do but I now realise how little I understand them. I remember an incident of a woman who was nineteen. She came to the project seeking help. Her boyfriend had been arrested. She was alone and said, in the space of an afternoon, three men had offered to ‘protect’ her. S
Read more

Day Three

Image
Day 3: Can I trust you? What are you up to? I spent the first part of last night scanning the people passing by me. People take a short cut through St Aidan C Of E Church churchyard and walked right next to me, tucked up in the doorway. It’s the closest I want to be to being afraid.  A man walked past and noticed me. Immediately, he looked straight ahead, avoiding any eye contact. What was I? Something to be afraid of? Something unwanted? I didn’t know but I instantly felt wary of him. Another did the same. The first man returned, eyes fixed away from me. A man and a woman walked by, the woman turned, looked surprised to see me and then smiled and said ‘Hello.’ What a smile, such a small but valuable thing. I’d started to feel vulnerable and question whether I was safe. In just half an hour I’d realised I needed to stay alert. I wasn’t going to take my shoes off in case I need to get up quickly. I was going to drape my sleeping bag over me and not get in it because I might
Read more