Guilt

I was scared to ask my grandparents if I could move in with them after being homeless for a few months.  I didn’t know how to tell them that I had allowed myself to be in the living conditions I had been in, and I felt guilty for relying on someone that I should be taking care of.

Becoming homeless happened in a matter of 20 hours.  I had just be discharged from a place called MHRC, Mental Health Research Center.  I was wrongfully put there after a dispute with my mother. They kept me there for a week to ensure that my mother would not be waiting for me when I got out.  There wasn’t enough evidence that she would be a real danger to me other than the fact that I was incredibly nervous about going home. My home. Where I lived with one roommate and some cats.  My mother didn’t even live there. But when I got out, there was a bright yellow paper taped to my door, “EVICTION NOTICE: 24 HOURS’. Despite me paying my mother money that I had earned, I never once thought she would take it and NOT put it on the bill (because the house was in her name).  So I had been giving her over a thousand dollars a month, with absolutely no benefit to me. So I had to collect what I could in two duffle bags, and find somewhere to go, or I’d be sleeping on the streets that night.

Megan and I ended up staying primarily at her father’s house.  He’d wake us up in a drunken rage in the middle of the night and yell about how we were just leeching off of him.  Guilt had been building inside of me since day one. I had been sleeping on a floor that felt and looked like it hadn’t been vacuumed in a year.  I had a small corner in an 8×12 foot bedroom. The only furniture in the room was a dresser and a vanity with a mirror. My corner was part way under the vanity and along side it.  I didn’t have a pillow and blankets weren’t needed, it was Spring time in Florida when this all started.

It was mid-May when I got a message from my Nana.  “The birds are chirping and the sun is shining. Made me think of you Sunshine!”  I didn’t know what else to do, so I cried. To me, that was a sign. Nana is a sign of goodness in the world that had done me wrong and made me so angry.  I called her after that, and told her about sleeping on the floor and not showering and being off my meds. She wanted me to call mom and have her help me, but she didn’t understand that mother was the cause of this whole thing.  It took me a week after that to ask Nana if I could come to Maine and stay with her until I got myself straightened out. She said yes.  

I hate relying on people because I never had to until I became homeless.  I felt so guilty staying at people’s houses, using their water to shower or using their coffee machine in the morning.  I would offer to help clean and do dishes, but I always felt like a burden. I felt the same way when I asked Nana if I could stay with her.  I have done my part and worked with my Papa on plumbing jobs, stained the barn, helped out with chores around the house that old people shouldn’t have to do.  But I will always feel guilty about it.

The past 7 months of me living here have been more progressive than the past 5 years of my life.  I was able to get free medical insurance, get back into school, get accepted into a college, and feel safe and stable in a loving environment.  Even though I feel guilty a lot for all of the things my grandparents have done for me, it just helps me stay grateful for them.

Photo by Thomas Hawk on Foter.com / CC BY-NC