Gish's JournalI'm 26 years old and have lived on the streets since I was 6 years old. A year ago I moved into Rebeccas Community 'Hospitality House.' This website chronicles my life journey through foster care, homelessness, drug addiction, prison and my new life off drugs and off the streets. |
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Fishing For The Pieces First of all I want to thank all the people that have read my journal and sent me e-mails, I never thought that I would get such positive feedback from so many people, it has been a pretty amazing experience for me to read some of the e-mails that people from all over the world have sent me and I just wanted to take the time to say thank you everyone for all the support and encouragement, it means a lot to me. Since it has been quite some time now since my last update, and I know some people may have been thinking I have dropped of radar never to be seen again (which is not true), I have achieved some of my goals and am still trying to work out others. The biggest achievement is that I'm still here, still trying and still willing to push myself in changing my life. It has now been close to a year and I still think I am doing the right thing, I don't have any doubts that I have made the correct decision, I have had my ups and downs, some days have been a lesson in patience but I am getting better at dealing with my new environment and the difficulties I face each day aren't as hard or as stressful as they once were. The other significant achievement in my life is that I have made a few friends so I no longer feel as isolated as I once did. Having friends who are not from the street has given me a lot of perspective and I have come to value the time I spend with them almost as much as the time I spend with my street friends. Over the course of the last couple of months I stressed a little bit about the amount of forward progress I have made in the time since I last made an entry to my journal, and then I thought it isn't important how much I achieve but how hard I try. Some of the things I have been trying to attain have been quite a bit different in the doing then in the thinking and I know I am still not ready to try others, so I have been slowly changing the way I have been doing things. I am learning that asking questions and talking with people about their methods is a very helpful way of learning about the differences that separate me and my old life and me and my new life that I am building. I have realized that I can do a lot more then I ever thought possible and there is no time limit, this is not a project or an exam that can be finished in one or two days, but an ongoing process that will probably never end. Timing has become the biggest contributing factor in all my life altering decisions, am I ready, does it need to be done right now or can it wait, how important is success or failure, these are the things I place the most importance on now, not what I am doing. I feel that considering the amount of time I spent on the street what possible difference is a couple of months going to make in the grand scheme of my life and where I want to be say in five years time. I spent a lot of time learning what is in my life that needs changing and how important it is that I change these things and why, and then even longer thinking about what these changes will mean to me and how they will effect my day to day thinking. There is just so much that I want to change that I know I could never do it all in a year or even five so I am in no rush, in fact this last six months has probably been better then any other six month period in my life. Just the small things I have found have been the biggest reward to come out of changing my life, not having to worry where my next meal is coming from and having clean clothes every day without any of the hassles involved of my old life, doing things like taking the dog for a walk to get the morning paper and some fresh bread for breakfast are the highlights of my week now. I still feel a strong attachment to the street and all my family there and I still see them as often as I can, but being able to come home at the end of the day is kind of a relief, I'm not saying that there aren't times when I wish I wasn't back there but they are fairly rare nowadays and the urge is nowhere near as strong as it once was. All I have done up to this point and the happiness I get out of each day is enough to take away even the strongest urges these days and this in itself is a big achievement for me, it means I made true progress and if I have come this far in only one short year imagine where I will be next year. Once
again thank you all for the e-mails and the words of support, keep checking in
from time to time and share in my journey towards a better life. |
