Pre-Homeless Adventure Thoughts

I put in my 30 day rent notice; my last day as a tenant is August 1, 2009. Although I've joked about it a lot, I honestly don't think its fair to call my 'situation' homeless; I think it'd be an insult to those that are really homeless.

First of all, its my choice to not rent housing. Personally, I think the system is inherently flawed when people are sinking in a quarter to over half their monthly income on rent alone. Let's do some napkin math. The median income for the City of San Diego is $36,637 (2000 US Census bureau). This comes out to making roughly $3,000 a month. After all the taxes, medicare, social security, etc. and you take home about $2200 a month.

I currently make approximately that amount and am a relatively fresh out of college student. Housing costs approximately $550 to $1000+, depending on the number of roommates and the location. That's anywhere from a quarter of my income to almost half of what I make being spent on rent alone. If you make less than the median income, you'd be spending more than half your income on rent. If you make more, you probably have more bills (student loans anyone?).

People are spending anywhere from $18 to $33 a night and that's not factoring in any utility costs. Some people are willing to pay that cost, but I think a lot of people don't even realize how much they're paying. My thoughts are that I don't think its worth it. I understand everyone's situation is different; I definitely would not have even considered this a few months back when I was still in a relationship. However, at this point in my life, I think car camping compliments my nomadic lifestyle so I've chosen not to rent.

Another common response I get is that people think I've fallen on hard times. I am not destitute; far from it, I don't even have any debt. (And who can say that in this day and age?) I still have stable income and even have a little savings. While some might not consider this a factor in whether I'm considered homeless, I think it greatly affects my ability to find housing should I choose to. I know that at any time, I can easily check into a hotel without it hurting me much financially. I can rent again should I decide to. I've been fortunate that I've never had to do anything for just the money and hopefully my luck will continue.

Now let's talk about the definition of "homeless". According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), people living in a car are considered homeless because its a "place not meant for habitation". Contrary to HUD, I think I still have shelter. My camper shell with all weather carpet still provides adequate cover and protection from the weather. Am I roughing it? Hardly. I'm laying on a $200 Thermarest Dreamtime mattress wrapped inside a nice 3 season sleeping bag. I've roughed it more camping in Yosemite.

Is it different than how most people live? Yeah, I suppose so. I don't think I can say whether its better or worse. All I can say is that at this moment, this is what I want to try and there's nothing more and nothing less.

Some people frown on this and I think that's great too; society as we know it cannot handle everyone living this type of lifestyle. What would happen if everyone looked around themselves and decided "Hey, I don't really need this..."? The economy as we know it would probably collapse. Streets and parks would be crowded and houses would be empty. Its a good thing that we all have different perspectives, different lifestyles, and different priorities.

Who needs a home?

I look around my apartment room and its barren except for a plain mattress and a desk with my computer. Lately it's been making me think about living out of my truck. Besides, I'm outdoors most of the time. I could totally make it work. Here's my current thought process:

Pros:

• I need a camper shell. I can pick one up on craigslist for pretty cheap once I get paid next week. The cost of a camper shell is a flat investment and maybe one month's rent if it's new.
• My truck is small, but I can make a makeshift bed inside the camper shell and sleep in there at nights. A buddy and I slept in the back without a camper shell in Yosemite and it was comfy enough, even when it was freezing outside. San Diego doesn't get that cold outside and after studying homelessness, I know that the times where you can possibly die while sleeping outside are the times when the city opens the winter shelters (that's how the winter shelters started, with a homeless person dying while sleeping outside and city officials responding by calculating exactly when the temperatures fall from 'discomfort' level to 'possible death' levels)
  
• Since my truck is small, I can blend in well by parking on the streets. I'm also familiar with most of San Diego now since I've driven to practically every homeless shelter here
  
• I'm in San Diego and there's homeless everywhere. I doubt a cop would take the time to give me a ticket for sleeping in my vehicle when there's people obviously sleeping on the curb.
• I have all my camping equipment including sleeping bag and a mini camping stove.
• I have one weeks worth of clothes, which means I can easily fit everything into a small box.
• I'm paying about $600 a month on utilities and rent. While its relatively cheap, that's still like $20 a night. That's how much sleeping in a hostel costs.
• Worst case scenario is that I crash with friends / family in the area if it doesn't work out.
• My work has showers and since its a stereotypical non-profit, its mainly women working there. Except for one other guy, no one else really uses the guys' showers.
• Freedom to roam wherever! When I go climbing or hiking, I don't have to drive 'home'.

Cons:

• Problem: Nowhere to use the facilities at nights and on weekends
• Possible Solution: Walmart or 24 hour fitness gym membership?
  
  
• Problem: Personal Hygiene
• Possible Solution: Keep 1 gallon of clean water at all times with a mini sink built-in that flushes into an empty 5 gallon tank?
  
  
• Problem: Nowhere to store my surfboard safely and I'd have to return my friend's rock climbing crashpad
• Possible Solution: ???
  
  
• Problem: My smell... (Sure, I'll just blame this one on being homeless...)

Overall, I think the pros are outweighing the cons more and more. I think this will be the start of another great adventure!!! :)

Futbol

I met my team five minutes before the game started. I knew a few of them, but for the most part, we were still trying to figure out each others' names when we got onto the field. Names and faces were extra important to me since we were the green team and the opposing team was red (and I'm partially red/green color blind)

Slight color blind genetics was probably the least of my worries since I had a host of other problems. For one, I lacked any real soccer experience. I haven't played soccer since middle school. At the time I remember making the soccer team... and promptly quitting since the video game 'Crash Bandicoot 2' was just released on the Playstation. You shouldn't ask a nerdy student whether he preferred running laps or helping a bandicoot save the world from Doctor Nitrus Brio!!! So I didn't quite remember the rules, no big deal.

We warmed up by kicking the ball on the field for a couple of minutes. I immediately felt out of breath and tired. I mentioned it and I think people thought I was joking. Ok, maybe I'm a little out of shape, no big deal.

I was still optimistic. I saw some elderly ladies in the parking lot, maybe they were the red team. The reality of the situation dawned on me as some of the red team appeared onto the field. One person was wearing a San Diego State soccer jersey and another had on a US Marine Corps soccer shirt (and that's just what some of the girls were wearing). The guys had custom names and numbers. Thinking it was a 'beginner / intermediate league', I was almost ready to show up in my sandals. I didn't even know that shinguards were required until an hour before the game.

I can describe in detail how the red team kicked our ass, but I'm sure no one wants to hear about that! We ended up losing 15-3 (the scoreboard stopped keeping track after they hit 15 before half time). Apparently they were in the league's final match last year.

In the end, what really mattered was that it was really fun. It was neat meeting new people and jumping back into something active. I also realized that all the stuff that I've normally been doing hasn't even been remotely competitive; yoga, rock climbing, running, slacklining, surfing, and hiking. All of that has been very mellow and relaxed. I guess its good to change things up a bit.

Hard to believe

After all this time, I still have trouble believing that I have expendable income. I'm not under the delusion that money can buy happiness, but I do know money can buy 'freedom'.

Time to move on

All of my friends told me not to do it, but I still did. Like most good advice, I ignored it.

Everyone told me not to contact her again and to move on. I disagreed and thought that maybe there was a chance left to fix our relationship. If there was, I knew I wanted to take that leap of faith. Even after everything that's gone on in the last couple months, I still loved her.

So I contacted her, told her how much I still loved her, apologized for the mistakes I've made, and asked if she wanted to give us another chance. Initially she didn't want to talk; she needed her space. I understood and said I would wait however long she needed. After a couple weeks of waiting, I got the call yesterday.

At this point in time, I can only say what I feel now. I might look back on this months or years later and just simply think what an idiot I was. To make this short, we talked and I told her that I knew things could work out with us. I knew that I loved her and that in the end, nothing else would matter as long as she loved me too.

But she didn't. She said doesn't love me. She then told me how she didn't love me even a month before I broke up (the same time I said I would stop paying rent for the both of us, etc.) She said she was just too afraid to tell me.

Before the call, I thought I was ready for it and had all my scenarios planned out. If she doesn't love me still, that's fine. She's moved on already and just gets over relationships quicker than I do. If she does still love me, we could try making it work. I thought I had it all planned out. I really didn't expect her to say that she stopped loving me even when we were still together.

A lot of things were running through my mind. I couldn't believe that she had me 'figure it out for myself' that she wasn't in love with me or that there was a problem even. Instead of communicating anything to me, she knew that I would someday finally get mad enough at her passive aggressiveness and be the one to 'break up'. I wondered, how long would she have lived rent free before she told me anything?

Despite everything that was in my thoughts, I only said two things. I asked if there was anything that I could possibly do to make our relationship work. She said no. I then said that I loved her still and wished her the best in life, even though she's not with me. Now I can finally move on.

Almost there...

I have enough to pay off all of my student loans right now! That means I won't have any credit card or student loan debt anymore. The weird thing is that I don't get paid that much; I think the main reason I'm able to save is because the feeling of having money still seems foreign to me. When I look at my bank account, I'm still trying to get used to the numbers being in the three digits and now its five! Maybe I'm just slow...

The problem with paying off student loans is that I'll be broke after and I won't have any traveling money. What to do?

For now

Everything is only for now. Pain and happiness is only for now. Listening to Avenue Q; I love this Broadway.