Today brings new hope. Today we were enrolled with a primary care physician for family health-care. We are looking forward to several things we’ve been without for nearly three years. For instance, a bathtub, refrigeration, a closet, an inside kitchen that also doesn’t require assembling. I keep finding myself counting our blessings still, noticing people living on the sidewalks or along the riverbank, in tents. I think about how they might feel about our camper van the way we feel about a home. Though as limited of a space as it is, as grateful as we are to have it, it’s not the sidewalk. I think about our youngest child having no remembrance of living in a permanent home. I wonder how they will respond to having an entire room that is theirs. Oh what hope each today holds.
Living one day at a time has been our life for over two years. Venturing out everyday to ensure enough supplies to maintain a family of four for a day. With a specific amount of storage space, stocking up isn’t something we can easily do. Becoming used to living for a day at a time, has had a major impact on my outlook. Someone recently made the comment that we have a really good attitude about our situation, which is such a compliment. We find it easier to maintain if we keep in mind “It won’t be like this forever”. Being miserable all the time, wouldn’t help us to make the best of our lives. We’ve literally had to be at our lowest, living in a car without any amenities, in order to begin to see blessings in the minuscule. We were forced to reckon with what was truly valuable in our life. We had to cling to each other, be there for one another and our children, like no one had ever done for us before. Learning to cope through such a chronic crisis wasn’t easy. There were many days where one or both of us was beyond our ability to cope. In the beginning, we were scared, alone, in a city where the only folks we knew weren’t accepting our pleas for help, basically turning their backs, yield but one. Our families ignored us, our friends wouldn't answer or return our phone calls and messages. As people walked away one by one, we knew we only had the four of us left to cling to. Being on the street is tough. It’s an unforgiving lifestyle. One wrong move can mean the entire stability could come crumbling down and in the wilderness we would find ourselves. We’ve been stranded with none to call upon. I’ve walked miles in the deep Colorado snow in negative fourteen degree weather, when our car we were living out of was in the shop, luckily we had the settlement to stay at a hotel those few days. We’ve been thrown out into the cold by people claiming to be friends. We’ve been judged, gossiped about, turned away, spit on, cussed out, lied to, manipulated, and all for asking for help in the most desperate of times. I would be barely able to move, back radiating with debilitating pain, and have to go out in the snow and drive cars in the auction to make thirty five dollars a day for food and gas until the next day. We’ve donated plasma so many times for extra money that there are scars in both mine and Katherine’s arms. We’ve cleaned houses all across Colorado, to make ends meet. We’ve had to dig down deep to endure all the ups and downs that have come from complete isolation, absolute desolation, and overwhelming desperation. We have relied on ourselves and each other more than seems logical for emotional and mental support. I can recall one day in particular, feeling really hopeless. I was in such detrimental emotional despair over our situation of being forced to move on to another state to keep our camper home and what little stability we’d had. The overwhelming emotions of that day rush back to me now as I recount the steps I took that day. Eight miles. I walked eight miles that day, over half of it with blisters on my feet, a grinding pain in my left hip, and fairly bad back pain. My mind was freaking out. I was panicked, anxious. Thinking all hope was gone of us making this situation better. Feeling as if we would forever be in this camper, disabled, with no power to relieve our sadness, our worries, or our longing for a home. Screaming next to the interstate as the traffic rushed passed, I was unleashing the torment I felt. Releasing the pent up anger and letting out the “why me’s”. Yelling at the top of my lungs, “When will this end?”. “Where is our family, where is our goodness, where is our home?” “I’m so tired of this”. Along with a lot of “Aaaahhhhhhh”. It was cathartic. It was sheer panic. It was fear of the unknown, it was previously harnessed anger over our continued situation seeming to be our demise. After two days of resting, I was able to move around again. We took the kids to the park, had some quiet time observing their creative imaginations as they played and tottered about the playground. Peaceful moments like this made it better. Seeing our precious children, happy, free to be themselves, and without a care, a stillness slowly filled my heart and mind. Relief. It’s been a tremendous sigh of relief knowing that we are now inching our way to being stable. Honestly, it feels as if all the pieces are falling into place to be stable in more ways than solely financially. Living as our authentic selves, ridding our lives of harmful substances, learning better coping skills, stopping the forms of violence taught to us by our families, and putting into practice effective communication, has brought about a stable family life. It seems this journey is taking another turn for the better. We are extremely thankful for those that have reached out to our little family in solidarity, touched our hearts with love, and brought about a peace of mind for us worrying parents. We are filled with gratitude for the two shirts we’ve achieved thus far in our tee-shirt campaign. Although, we will have to pay out of pocket for three more, we are glad we got to experiment with the fund-raiser. We still hope to be able to upgrade the blog to allow subscribers, but it looks as though we will have to find another route in order to do so, and it won’t be as soon as we had hoped. Looking back over the last two and a half years, we’ve overcome dozens of obstacles which came with just as many panic attacks, but we’ve gained knowledge and strength. We’ve lost many loved ones, both friends and family members, but we’ve gained a stronger bond of trust between the four of us. We’ve learned what true commitment looks like. I’ve met thousands of people along the way, many of them rude, a few handful were really special and an even fewer amount I’ve written about here. We are truly thankful for all the people that have helped us to get through our journey. We can not express enough gratitude for those that actually show up to help. We can not say enough times how happy our hearts our when others are out there helping in direct ways too. Thanks for showing up, thanks for showing out, because we are too! Peace, Love & Solidarity :) The Blake Family James, Katherine, J&J
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Authors:James and Katherine are a transgender couple raising two kids. They were southerners when coming to understand themselves as trans. Ultimately it lead to a nearly three year road trip to find home. Now they are re-housed and still focused on outreach in the transgender community! Archives
October 2020
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