When I was sixteen and wound up homeless for three weeks in San Francisco, I was terrified. I had already called home to ask my mom for help. Perhaps she didn’t understand how deeply in trouble I was. I lied to her, told her I could fend for myself. I was afraid to tell her the truth, afraid to tell her what I really wanted: Come get me. I believed she would say no. She arranged a flight home for me; beyond that, I was on my own.
Miraculously, or so I thought, I ran into someone from back home, someone who I thought was a friend. He was older than me by twelve or so years. I asked him for help, asked if I could sleep on the floor in a corner of his girlfriend’s apartment where I would be out of sight, out of mind. No trouble at all, barely there.
Pain is a part of life, but is suffering necessary?
He said, no can do. Instead, he trafficked me to a stranger for four nights. That’s how I got the shelter I needed. Four nights. Was that painful? You bet. Excruciating. I suffered for years, believing I was bad, rotten to the core, that it was my fault.
Pain is a part of life, but is suffering necessary? Or is it a choice? What do I mean by that? I mean that we are powerless over fate, over misfortune. We feel pain. It’s when we hold onto that pain by stuffing it, silencing it, or ignoring it—that’s when we suffer. Or when we tell ourselves we are bad because of the bad things that happened to us—that’s suffering.
Self-forgiveness came through intensive therapy and a strong spiritual practice. I finally released myself from a life of shame and suffering. I learned that what happened to me wasn’t my fault. Yes, if I’d been truthful with my mom and insisted she come get me, maybe I’d have a different story to tell. But if I had been able to demand that, I wouldn’t have been homeless in the first place.
I learned that what happened to me wasn’t my fault.
The fact is I didn’t use my voice to say I needed help because I didn’t feel worthy of it. Today is a different story. I know I am worthy of support. We all are. I have learned to use my voice and ask for assistance when I need it, and to accept help when it is offered.
Today, I experience great joy.
Bad things happen to all of us. It’s the negative messages we inflict on ourselves because of them that causes lasting suffering. That and refusing to face the pain head on. With professional help, of course.
Today, I experience great joy. I know I am beautiful and lovely despite the things I’ve been through and the things I’ve done. (Hurt people hurt people.) Today I choose joy and love. I choose to face my day of reckoning, whenever that may be, with no regrets and no resentments.
We all come here to learn. Those guys who hurt me? Maybe they are sorry for what they did. And my mom? Maybe she was as clueless as I was. I’m not going to waste a second of my life, my precious life, hating them or anyone, or myself. Most especially myself. I love myself, and I treat myself accordingly. It took me many years of suffering to figure that out, but today, I suffer no more.
Read more: What Happened to Me Wasn’t My Fault“The Foot at the Art Institute of Chicago,” The Ekphrastic Review, December 9, 2024.