Minnie
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- Joined
- Jul 25, 2011
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First off, this is gonna be long, but please hear me out...
The past year has meant MASSIVE changes in my life... Last november I left MJJF after spending up towards 15 hours a day working behind the scenes for 5 years. I got to know Trish, Chichi, Gary... the old modsquad. I loved everyone like my sister or brother - still do. I poured my heart into MJJF, but often times, good things come to an end, as did my time with MJJF - just as MJJF became MJJC. Maybe that's why I've never become a regular here... By now nobody probably even remembers I was here!
In Febuary I left my native country to work as a social worker for 6 months on the streets of Los Angeles.
For 6 months I lived under conditions that would shock the majority of people I know. I lived in a tiny room with another woman whom I did not know, and who was 20 years my senior. I ate in a cafeteria 3 meals a day, and the food was often either over-cooked or downright bad, but it was food - and free. Everything I used was worn down, wrecked or non-existant. The car I drove had to be started with a screw-driver and the door held closed with a bungee-chord.
I worked part-time as a outreach worker, sitting on street-corners and beaches trying to reach out to all those people you pass on the street and never even see. Often times we didn't have enough money or food to do this properly, so it was first-come-first serve... We would go out on Venice Beach where there are HUNDREDS of homeless people, and we'd bring 50 sack lunches... We would maybe have 24 bottles of water, and too bad if you were number 25. We met people shivering because it was 60 degrees out, and all they had were a pair of shorts and a tank-top, and we had no blankets to give them. No room in the car to take them back with us to give them new clothes.
Part time I worked in a shelter for women who are homeless, drug-users, victims of any kind of abuse, and most of them have had their lives shattered into pieces with no way out. We would try to teach them that regardless of what they've done, someone still loves them. I loved them. With every ounce of me, those girls became my everything.
Once one of the ladies got bitten in the face by a brown recluse spider - a nasty little thing that can possibly kill you due to a really serious infection in the bite. She got a wound the size of a dime on the side of her face, but as she had no insurance and we had no money, we couldn't take her to the doctor. So she cleaned it at least twice a day with hydro-peroxide, and we just had to hope she would stay alive. Only if she stopped breathing could we call for help.
I grew really close to these girls. Some of the women living at the center became my best friends, symbols of hope in humanity, because they survived despite the world trying to kill them. The church became my religious home, with the pastor being the most inspirational man I have EVER met in my life... giving up fame and fortune to reach the homeless and broken. Regaining both the fame and fortune, but remaining a selfless man who cried on stage after hearing the story of a 16-year-old girl.
And then... come the summer and I went back to my own country. I spent a month having an adventure of a lifetime with some of my best friends. I saw places I had only dreamt of, and did things I had always wanted to do.
I found a new place to live, and have more or less settled in.
But here's the problem... There is absolutely nobody out there with whom I can sit down and just share everything I experienced. There is nobody out there who knows what I saw, who were there when I cried with a homeless man on the street, who celebrated with me and the graduate of our resedential program, and who felt overwhelmed at the sight of the Grand Canyon.
Every time I see footage, pictures etc of the 6 months in Los Angeles, and every time I go here and read staff posts from the people I was once so close with, I cry. My heart is torn to pieces, because it is over. The people I met in LA, I might never see them again. I might never again visit the places that meant so much, and I might never again be part of an online family like I once was.
Is there anybody out there who can say "You know... I've been through this... I've had so many happy memories that I couldn't share with anyone that it was killing me!"
Bad memories I can let go of... but what about the good ones?
The past year has meant MASSIVE changes in my life... Last november I left MJJF after spending up towards 15 hours a day working behind the scenes for 5 years. I got to know Trish, Chichi, Gary... the old modsquad. I loved everyone like my sister or brother - still do. I poured my heart into MJJF, but often times, good things come to an end, as did my time with MJJF - just as MJJF became MJJC. Maybe that's why I've never become a regular here... By now nobody probably even remembers I was here!
In Febuary I left my native country to work as a social worker for 6 months on the streets of Los Angeles.
For 6 months I lived under conditions that would shock the majority of people I know. I lived in a tiny room with another woman whom I did not know, and who was 20 years my senior. I ate in a cafeteria 3 meals a day, and the food was often either over-cooked or downright bad, but it was food - and free. Everything I used was worn down, wrecked or non-existant. The car I drove had to be started with a screw-driver and the door held closed with a bungee-chord.
I worked part-time as a outreach worker, sitting on street-corners and beaches trying to reach out to all those people you pass on the street and never even see. Often times we didn't have enough money or food to do this properly, so it was first-come-first serve... We would go out on Venice Beach where there are HUNDREDS of homeless people, and we'd bring 50 sack lunches... We would maybe have 24 bottles of water, and too bad if you were number 25. We met people shivering because it was 60 degrees out, and all they had were a pair of shorts and a tank-top, and we had no blankets to give them. No room in the car to take them back with us to give them new clothes.
Part time I worked in a shelter for women who are homeless, drug-users, victims of any kind of abuse, and most of them have had their lives shattered into pieces with no way out. We would try to teach them that regardless of what they've done, someone still loves them. I loved them. With every ounce of me, those girls became my everything.
Once one of the ladies got bitten in the face by a brown recluse spider - a nasty little thing that can possibly kill you due to a really serious infection in the bite. She got a wound the size of a dime on the side of her face, but as she had no insurance and we had no money, we couldn't take her to the doctor. So she cleaned it at least twice a day with hydro-peroxide, and we just had to hope she would stay alive. Only if she stopped breathing could we call for help.
I grew really close to these girls. Some of the women living at the center became my best friends, symbols of hope in humanity, because they survived despite the world trying to kill them. The church became my religious home, with the pastor being the most inspirational man I have EVER met in my life... giving up fame and fortune to reach the homeless and broken. Regaining both the fame and fortune, but remaining a selfless man who cried on stage after hearing the story of a 16-year-old girl.
And then... come the summer and I went back to my own country. I spent a month having an adventure of a lifetime with some of my best friends. I saw places I had only dreamt of, and did things I had always wanted to do.
I found a new place to live, and have more or less settled in.
But here's the problem... There is absolutely nobody out there with whom I can sit down and just share everything I experienced. There is nobody out there who knows what I saw, who were there when I cried with a homeless man on the street, who celebrated with me and the graduate of our resedential program, and who felt overwhelmed at the sight of the Grand Canyon.
Every time I see footage, pictures etc of the 6 months in Los Angeles, and every time I go here and read staff posts from the people I was once so close with, I cry. My heart is torn to pieces, because it is over. The people I met in LA, I might never see them again. I might never again visit the places that meant so much, and I might never again be part of an online family like I once was.
Is there anybody out there who can say "You know... I've been through this... I've had so many happy memories that I couldn't share with anyone that it was killing me!"
Bad memories I can let go of... but what about the good ones?
. 