Porched Belonging

The rain is beginning to fall. It continues to fall harder as the night wears on. 

"I can't believe this shit.." I moan. "A torrential rain storm." 

I'm laying on a thin piece of foam that separates me from a concrete slab on the porch of a friends house. The thin mesh covering the porch is no match against the sheets of rain pounding down on me. I am drenched. The foam I am laying on is absorbing water like a sponge. I lay there wishing for a better life.

I'm surrounded by all of my belongings, everything I own. Everything that I own is right here with me on the porch. It too is getting wet. 

Earlier in the day I had talked my friend into helping me move out of my apartment. I had been evicted and I had to vacate before they changed the locks. Before they locked me out. He offered to help, along with another friend who had a truck. 

We loaded everything I owned onto the bed of the truck but I had nowhere to go..

"Can I just crash at your place, just for a few days...?"

He wasn't thrilled with the idea but allowed me to make use of his porch.

Everything I own is right here on this porch. This is it. I'm surrounded by all of it, the treasures and the trash.

A box of old baseball cards that I had since I was a child. I carried them everywhere with me, hoping one day that they would be valuable enough to make me rich. 

A pair of skis. I was going to be a professional skier. I loved to ski. I hadn't skied in a long time but I still had my skis. 

Even a life story I had written was right there on the porch. It must have been a hundred pages long. I wrote it while staying in one of the many rehabs I had patronized. It was an assignment that my counselor gave to me. 

I read it to my counselor. He said that in the thirty years he had been counseling, that it was the most articulate writing he had ever heard. He said I had a talent.

The next day that counselor would suffer a heart attack and die. 

"Why?" I asked myself. "Why is my life so troubled?"

I had some shelving units that were once in my childhood home also sitting on the wet porch. They once sat in the very room I grew up in. I still had the shelves.

What I didn't have was a home. 

I remember laying there trying to sort things out. Trying to patch things up. I did this while laying in a puddle of water. I did this while laying in a puddle of tears.

Eventually the rain water would flood the porch. A search for solutions would flood my mind. Lost wouldn't begin to describe my existence.

I choose to hold onto to such horrifying memories, remembering that they are my greatest asset. Without the memories, I lay vulnerable to more suffering.

Through the wreckage I found freedom. Through the freedom, I found a home.

I am no longer laying on a porch full of tears.