Why the Homeless Need A Shower.

There are many things I take for granted.Examples: my lungs, the ability to ask my parents for advice, air conditioning, FL sunshine and showers.

Let me explain.

When you have no where that's your own and you are constantly in other's space it's necessary to be as small as possible. Take up as little room. The fear is one day you will wake up and their patience will have sailed away with Winken, Blinken and Nod. You will be out on your own. Maybe you are lucky enough to have a job. So you work 9 to 5 and then spend a couple of hours a night searching for an apartment. Realizing that with each day's search- your ability to cover 1st, last and deposit is dwindling. Maybe you feel you can't even make yourself breakfast (nevermind pack a lunch) where you are staying. Thus, you spend $$ you need on food you can't afford.

There are anxieties and stresses that cannot be adequately expressed in words over being homeless. Even now, 7 months later, I cannot write those feelings without believing they miss the point. The only thing I can expound on from my 8 weeks of homelessness is the one place I found absolute solace.

A shower.

Its the one place nothing is expected of you. That 2x5 space is yours for those 15 minutes. You owe no one. Thinking only of Lather, Rinse, Repeat- you do not need to plan out how to make as little noise as possible when waking up. No one cares if you are vegetarian, do your dishes or plan to keep the common space clean. Craigslist doesn't exist. It doesn't matter if its 25* outside or 125* outside. For those few precious moments, you are beholden to nothing. No one is above you on the social ladder and no one is below you.

Its somewhere you can control every piece of your atmosphere. Maybe you'll dim the lights. Maybe you'll wash your hair last instead of first. Maybe you will keep your socks on. For the homeless (or rentless, as I was) your liberty is not your control. You are at the mercy of those that take you in. But in the shower, you can reclaim your voice.

NO! I will NOT wash my hair today.

Decisions, however small, are decisions none the less. Its hard to explain to anyone who's never experienced the sort of helplessness that comes with relying on others for housing. But, when I get the chance to sit and talk with the ladies and gentlemen I encounter in soup kitchens- I can understand the small haven ensconced within a shower.

It really is the little things.