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I miss the Shack. It's only been thirteen months. Of course, I'm not over losing my home of nine years. It's going to take a long time and stable housing to work on getting over it. I barely have the ability to get through my day to day. I'm doing my best.

My anxiety is really bad right now. I'm trapped between living in a car that has problems and continuing to stay at the house of the friends with whom I've worn out my welcome. It's taking all my energy to not throw a bunch of stuff in to that problematic car and bolt.

I feel like I'm just waiting to die. Everything I love and value have been taken from me, and I still can't reconcile it. I can't, "just start over." I'm 61 and disabled. I simply don't have that luxury.

To be clear, I had a home and was successfully managing it and my bills as a disabled person, and living my best life. Until, through no fault of my own, it was taken from me.

Now the convicted sex offender and felon's handlers are directing him to insist federal (HUD) housing grants be cut by at least 66%.

This is consequential to me, as a homeless person.
    

I keep thinking I want to write a big long post. then I think I don't want to write a big long post. Vacillation is nothing new for me, though. I feel like it's part of my executive function struggles.

I'm going to be homeless unless my name comes up on one of the now seven different federal housing lists I'm now on by 02 April, 2026. I'm preparing. My friends that have been hosting me have given me a date to relinquish the room they've allowed me to stay in.

As noted above, 02 April, 2026.

I hope it will come up on one of the lists before April, but I have no faith that it will.

I've spent several nights sleeping in my car at various rest stops around the state. It is doable and I've worked out a few things to make living in a car more bearable. Part of this preparation has been in the form of gear purchased over years of bicycle touring. Stoves, pots, sleeping bag and air sleeping pad, etc. All relatively light weight and easy to pack. I've also got a smallish cooler that is better than nothing. Ice has to be replaced roughly every two days in hot weather.

One thing I did this year is build a platform to sleep on for the back of the car. The rear seats of the car I have fold down, creating a reasonably sized space for sleeping and holding gear. The backs of the folded down seats have metal bars or stiff wires in them that keeps them from caving in under loads. However, the fabric does sag around the bars or wires and the sleeping pad isn't enough  to stop them digging in to my body when slept on. So, I built the platform. It's hinged at about the middle. This makes it easy to fold and store in the cargo space when the seats aren't folded down. I can also remove the hinge pins, if needed for whatever reason.

Click for larger image in new tab/window.

    

I'm the family member that kills themself. Every family has one.






    

I can't reconcile what happened to me last year. I can't even write about it here because I feel like it will be interpreted as either self-pity or an attempt to manipulate others' feelings.

My brother and niece are emotionally unsafe.
My sister attempts to offer toxic positivity.
I guess it's not their job to care or work with my brain the way it exists.
I've outlived my stay with the friend I've been staying with.
It would be inappropriate to share a lot of my feelings with another friend due to their emotional issues.

To be clear: I am not being hyperbolic. I am not trying to use this post as a weapon. This is profoundly fucked.

I reached out to my niece while I was processing the grief from a grave loss. She's emotionally unsafe. I'll never be vulnerable with her again. (Place your mouse pointer inside the box below to display the conversation. It's masked because it makes me physically ill to look at.)

    

I had ideations of typing out some detailed rant about my mental health. But fuck it. It's not going to change anything in any real sense, and I will still see no path forward, and I will still not want to live anymore. So there's no point in writing about it.

Was thinking about that friend and that super long text they sent me.

I know there are people who care about me. That knowledge isn't enough to make life feel like it's worth living anymore. I'm just so exhausted from all of the shit, and people who want for nothing telling me, "life is by no means fair", the ghosts that haunt me, and all the decisions made out of anxiety and depression. It's understood. I mean, we all understand that permanent physical disabilities and chronic pain that interfere with major life activities are a contributor to depression, yeah?

I know who and what I used to be, but now feel completely disconnected from that me.
    

I turned sixty on 25 August of this year. I was homeless twenty days later.

A friend sent me a super long text yesterday telling me to use the theft of my home as a springboard in to a new chapter/adventure--I don't remember the exact wording, but that's the gist.--of exciting possibilities.

Yesterday was the worst pain day I've had in a while. So far today is pretty bad, too. I know my friend was trying to be helpful and [unintentionally toxically] positive, but I don't think they understand the extent of the damage to my body--or mind, for that matter. Compound that with age, and I can't just pickup and "start again" like I could, and did, in my twenties, thirties, forties, and attempted to do in my fifties until a workplace injury and some cascading [damaged] leg problems ended that effort.

So, yeah. My situation is an extreme blow. I don't have the physical ability or resources to dig out of it on my own this time.

To  be fair, I had help from others during those other times of picking up and moving on. The reason that I'm not living in my car now is because I'm being giving help. The difference between now and then was I was much more resilient and much less damaged.

I just don't know how to pick up this time. I'm losing the struggle with the mental and physical damage and pain. 
    

Took my bicycle to Pullman, WA yesterday to ride the Bill Chipman Palouse Trail. The rail trail1runs runs for 11.25 km (7 mi) between Pullman and Moscow, ID.2

The experience was super disappointing. Cracks in the asphalt (bitumen) surface are so numerous and so big and so poorly patched that it's completely unusable as a transportation corridor. By numerous, I mean cracks every 3 to 20 meters for the length of the part I rode. Most cracks were much wider than my 26"x2.00" tires.

The trail isn't practical for bicycle commuting because the cracks make traveling at an efficient speed difficult. I spent so much time focusing on the cracks and standing in the pedals that I could never focus on anything else or gain any speed. And they would be absolutely damaging to the wheels of a bike loaded with groceries. I suppose an #ebike with large low pressure tires wouldn't be affected too badly, but that's an exception to what most cyclists use.

The attached photos are just a representative few and illustrate the magnitude of the problem. No wonder I almost never see more than an occasional walker or runner. Cyclists are extremely rare. I gave up and turned around after less than 4 km. 

The City of Moscow independently maintains the trail from the Idaho/Washington border to its connection with the Paradise Path. Perhaps I'll attempt to ride that segment of the trail someday and record its condition.

Oh, well. Money wasted by #government agencies, and a really bad look for the spending of transportation dollars on cycling.
    

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_trail

2: https://whitmancounty.org/Facilities/Facility/Details/Bill-Chipman-Palouse-Trail-3

They took it all. My home. My future. My purpose. My community. My neighbors.

Everything.

I can't recover from this. I don't want to be alive anymore.