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

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