Homeless No More.....

I wrote a blog post a couple of years back about my memories of being homeless when I was younger. I left it up for a few days, and then I panicked, and realised I didn't feel comfortable with it. It was too specific, and it wasn't the right time.

But this month, me and my husband bought a house for the very first time. It's a very strange experience, particularly when like me, you have been homeless in your earlier years.

Like so many people, we lived in rented accommodation for years. We just couldn't ever seem to be able to afford our own house, and for as long as I can remember, it was a dream for me, and it always seemed to be a pipe dream. The problem with rented housing is, that you never really feel it's home, well, I didn't at least. You're just paying for time in someone else's house. And I always hated it. I felt that my own house was out of my league.....that I was chasing something that I could just never have.

I don't know if everyone feels the same as me, or if it was enhanced by my former homelessness - When you've been homeless at an age when you should have had people looking after you -  it gets into your very being, and you carry on feeling homeless inside. You have all those inner response triggers, set on 'homeless'. The sofa surfing, (it didn't have a buzz word in those days, unless you call it dossing, but that's not a good word!) The wandering around the streets for hours on end, the excuses you'd make up just to go and visit someone you knew, because the loneliness was unbearable. The worried anticipation you felt when you pictured the weary look on their face when they opened the door to you. Again. The apologising you do, for being there again. The stuttering, when you ask if you can stay the night.

Everyone else had days with their families, but when you're homeless, you only have you. That carries on into adult life, and you find that even when you're no longer that 'difficult homeless girl' you find yourself with some of the behaviours still left over. There are so many, (but the majority I won't mention here) someone invites you over for a cup of coffee, and you find yourself nervous about outstaying your welcome, so you leave way too early, and the other person thinks you don't like them! :D You spend way too much of your time browsing the houses in the estate agents windows/on the internet/in magazines, dreaming about how it would feel to live in this house or that house. You still wake up sweating from a nightmare where you were lonely and hungry and cold. And it goes on. Being homeless is one of the hardest things you can go through, and everyone has a story, a reason why they are homeless. It may not always be the reason you think.

Now my dream has come true, finally, amazingly. And I am sitting here typing this blog post from my own house! I have been here for just over two weeks, and a few days ago, I thought I hated it, I thought we had made a mistake. Now I realise that the homeless part of me was just adjusting.

Life is good.

Love,
Mrs Plop xxx