Never Really Homeless, But I Felt Like I Was

I have compassion for individuals who are homeless because of circumstances beyond their control. On the other hand, I can understand why people don’t want them squatting in their front yards. Homelessness is a sad, tough problem with no easy solution.

I never actually was homeless, but there was one time in my life that I felt as if I were. And during another time, technically, I guess I really was.

In the late seventies we lived rent-free in an old bunkhouse on a ranch north of Tucson. I lived there at the whim of the owner who didn’t like me, despite never having done anything to cause her to dislike me. Initially, both late Other Half and I had been promised work there, but my bookkeeping job fell through. In hindsight, I suspect that the owner never intended to hire me.

To make a very long story short, I hated living there. I never had felt so lonely before--- or since. I don’t suffer from depression. Good thing, too, because living in that place was depressing. The ranch was located in the Catalina Mountains, aka the middle of nowhere.

After doing a few household chores, I had nothing to do for the rest of the day. Because of the drug drops rumored to be taking place at a nearby airstrip, I was warned not to wander outside the ranch grounds. So my leisure activities generally were limited to: 1) hanging out with the ranch cats, or 2) visiting the foreman’s wife and watching what seemed like endless soap operas while listening to her complain about everything and everyone.

I frequently woke up at night wondering if I would ever get off the mountain. Worse, not having been employed for months, I wondered if anyone would ever hire me again. Oh, yeah, I did have a job in town for a short while. I quit after a couple of weeks. I just wasn’t cut out to be a bartender.

Eventually, I did get off the mountain.

After a week of unsuccessfully looking for work, I walked into the personnel office of a big box store and almost begged the clerk for a job. She called the controller, who came down and interviewed me. I walked out with a job in the accounting department. I think the controller hired me against his better judgement because he realized I was semi-desperate for a job. After I had worked there for a couple of months, he told another employee, “I hired her off the street. I didn’t think she would stay.”

But I stayed for a little over two years. Fun times.

I left the store when I went to work at the university. I am grateful for that university job, not only because it later looked good on my resume, but also because of the many college credits I was able to accumulate for a very low cost.

Fast forward several years. Those university credits transferred to another college during the time of my second experience with perceived homelessness.

I was living in an apartment that was close to my job and to the college I attended. But it wasn’t my apartment; I was never on the rental agreement. Fortunately the landlord was cool with me being there. And the legal tenant acted as a buffer between me and . . . well, not going for the long explanation at this time.

However, it didn’t take me long to discover that there was an individual in the area who was not thrilled to see me there. And unlike my experience with the ranch owner, I confess that this person probably had a valid reason to feel that way. Person probably was delighted to learn I was moving back to the West shortly after finishing my last class.

I still joke about living at the post office box I rented for several years while I was completing the requirements for my degree.