My bridge life

I could begin by saying, ' it was by choice'. But that is not the reality for me at all. It was a decision I chose as a direct result my unsatisfactory marriage..but I would rather have stayed home. The inability to deal with pressures of cooking,cleaning, organizing all the bills and accepting verbal abuse on a daily basis is what initiated my abandonment.As an end result I made a new life of peace underneath a bridge overpass on the southwest side of town.

Newly married, I lived a housewifes' life. With no friends to keep me content with doing nothing while my husband was at work all day, I grew bored sitting in the house. So I found employment at a local hardware store full time. The husband complained and soon arguements were the end results. I began to find it more satisfying to stay at work for more hours and eventually landed a second job. More arguements and extreme verbal threats eventually persuaded me to look for companionship in the streets.

I found myself beginning to linger around the old neighborhoods I frequented before marriage. On my off days I would drive to the other side of town and just hang out with whoever was available. As a result of keeping company with the wrong ones, I found drugs. And once I found the "high" of being under the influence, there was no going back home for me. The different frame of mind was as good as peace to me.

I enjoyed getting the high. Driving around in my car with different strangers everyday, just enjoying our buzz and talking about lifes' pressures. I still had not returned home and had simply refused to answer the phone anymore. Each time my husband spoke with me on the phone, he was ranting about what could be the outcome if I didn't return immediately. So, I never went back.

I found a new life in my car. I lived there in my automabilt parked in front of the convenience store each day. The owners never complained because they had already known me from years before. Even when I had other business to take care of, I would always return to the store and back my car next to the dumpster to settle in. But that soon became uncomfortable. People would approach my car wanting to get in and go other things when I only wanted to rest. I had to get away. So, I ventured with a stranger one day to get high under the bridge overpass.

It was a totally different atmosphere down there. Quiet, except for the cars driving overhead, the underground had a beautiful view of the bayou that run thru and the city park next to the bike trail to the left. I could sometimes get a glimpse of bikers or families on the trail, continuing on with their lives. It was dirty concrete and discarded trash all over the place which made me uncomfortable sitting down. That's the factor that prompted me to initiate my feng shui and organize my own private section. I wasn't proud or modest about collecting crates, pallets and discarded pieces of furniture from dumpsters. Clothes and anything that I could drag down the hill under that bridge, I made a home life for myself. With the ability to run the streets all day and retreat to my home by the bridge at night, I found a different type of contentment with solitude. And I realized that being homeless wasn't completely unsatisfying.