Some people might consider being homeless as living under a bridge in a sleeping bag, begging for money on the corner of busy city streets, living day by day and hoping there will still be a tomorrow.
My experience of being homeless is far from this, far from the common belief, far from a heart-wrenching site for others to feel sorry for. My experience is uncommon for the majority of those I have encountered, so let me explain it to you.
Homeless for me isn't living on the streets, it's living in nine different homes before I entered my freshmen year of high school. I grew up moving from Grandma's house in Indiana to being an army brat (literally, I was still a crying infant) on a base in Georgia. From there it was back to Indiana, growing from infant toddler to shy, nerdy elementary student. This is the point in my life that I recall my one and only childhood best friend. She was a curly-haired diva who had an allergy to red food dye (crazy right.) I loved her and still do to this day, but she is the one childhood friend I can recall with clear vision and crystal clear memories. Many kids I have encountered through moving have grown up together and have learned who they click with the most, why they hate the girl who lives down the street, and why they all love to meet at the park on Thursdays after school. I never did. Which brings me to my next experience.
Homeless for me was never begging for money (other than from my parents occasionally of course), homeless was begging myself to make friends with the kids at a new school. I never got to grow up knowing I had a friend to go to when the girl down the street did something weird, I never had a friend I knew I could sit by every day of school for the next few years because it was what we did, I never had continuous friends. Each new school, every day that I was the new girl, I went to school nervous, scared about my outfit, my hair, my actions, my words. When you've experienced being the new girl at least four times in your life, you either get used to it or you get defeated by it. After I left my curly haired best friend back in Indiana for Illinois, I was excited to be the new girl, at first. I was young and thought I was so cool for moving to a new home and being able to make all new friends. Of course, I got to my first day in a completely unfamiliar school that had no teacher with a white beard and the last name "Greene." I learned that these kids were not the ones I had gotten to know and loved through the past few years. I hoped and prayed they would like me and that I would make friends. It didn't really go the way I had hoped, though. You see, I learned that children are mean and they don't often like things or people that create disturbance, children don't like other that are different than them and are "weird", children call others "Ms. Lonely" because they're new and don't have many friends, children are bullies.
Homeless was never living day by day, homeless was wondering if I would move again and when. After being an army brat, life would randomly get hard for my family and we moved to where ever the money was coming from. We soon left Illinois for a new job in back in Indiana, sadly, not at my old school with old friends. I was the new girl, again, and just as nervous as the last time. We stayed in that new town and school for an entire two years. I had made friends with some of the greatest people I have ever met, I encountered a new best friend starting my first year of middle school, a really smart and weird band geek, both of these aspects created a need for me to have a home with these people and continue growing up with them. I was heartbroken when my parents told me we would be moving yet again, just twenty minutes away, but far enough that there was another school I'd have to attend and more people I'd have to meet. They did tell me that we could move back in a year, so I could choose to attend this new school, or I could be home schooled, the choice was mine. I chose to be homeschooled because I didn't want to make new friends only to leave them again. A year past and my parents decided not to move, they also decided it was time to be put back into public school and make new friends again.
Homeless wasn't hoping there would be a tomorrow to wake up to, it was hoping that I would wake up to a life that didn't require me being the new girl again. I was nervous being the new girl yet again starting at this new school that was only twenty minutes away from the people I had grown to love and wasn't looking to replace. I was nervous a first. Five years later, June 11, 2016, I was looking next to the people I had grown to know and love, tears filled my eyes as a realization hit me like the cold, shocking waves of the sea: I had a home with these people.
My home was the five girls I had made countless, unforgettable memories with for five years, my home was the team I found myself joining and having such a love, hate relationship with, my home was the boy I still get to call my boyfriend today, my home was the classmates I was scared of getting to know, but accepted me into their close knit family they made years before I intruded into their school.
I realized that even though I was once homeless and scared of never finding a place to call home, someone can find a home in the most unexpected of places and the most unreasonable of times and unlikely of reasons.
