The Valleys Inbetween

       I never imagined I would ever wake up to the high pitched sirens of a police vehicle pulling up to push me out of my home, my refuge, the one place I could call relatively safe. I never imagined my toes bluing to the frigid winter's bite nipping through the icy wind. If you would have asked me two years ago if I thought I would be homeless, I would have laughed at your face and most likely called you a few choice words for your complete and utter ignorance.
        I was a Harvard graduate, the cream of the crop, top of the educational food chain with the world bowing, or so I thought, underneath my intellectual grasps. I was never challenged to see the reality of what existed around me. I was never asked to look the man holding the "hungry and hopeless" sign at the stop light in the eye and experience his hurt, his desperation, his needs, his lack of security and stability. I was ignorant of the world I called myself apart of. I existed merely as a additive, encouraging rather than negating the wrong I was blinded from seeing starving right in my back yard, outside of apartment complexes, on park benches I passed every single evening. I was oblivious and it pains me to say I almost wish for that obliviousness once more.
          My name doesn't matter, people hardly have a reason to call me anything at all anymore other than nuisance, pest, lackadaisical, but I was once a human being, someone loved, cherished, respected. Now, I reside as a nameless face drowned out by honking horns and business suit blues. I don't remember the last time I ate an actual meal sitting down at a table or the last time I brushed my teeth, simple every day occurrences I once didn't even have to think or worry about. I never regarded where my next meal was coming from or how I would clothe myself or keep myself from stinking. I always had a roof, a shower, a bed, and food. I never once needed or wanted. I was living in a reality that over 600,000 people in the United States alone found impersonal, far cry from their wildest hopes or dreams.
         It wasn't until I found myself bleeding on my knees after scraping rock's bottom too fervently that I realize that we as human beings were created as one and the same. No man is greater than the other, the only difference is some are birthed into stability that grants them a steadier hand up than living check by check provides. I always lived my life to the fullest and held myself to the highest aspirations. I made it to Harvard, graduated with honors, and even married. I was checking step after step off of my personal "American dream" plan toward success.
         I find myself contemplating such things from the cold, hard, metal cushion of Washington Park's finest bench. I am currently a man, unemployed, and homeless in the city of St. Pete, FL. I had every opportunity to be something, to make my mark, but my poor decisions and the misalignment of my playing cards left me faceless, without any reason to continue breathing. Survive or be discarded. No one knows me, no one cares for me, but a single genuine act of kindness can move mountains that even financial stability can't move. I don't claim to be content because I am not, but what I do claim to be is a visionary, finally able to peel the cloudy scales from my dormant eyes and see for the first time.
         The next time you see a man standing at a stop light with a card board sign, think about the fact that at one point in his life he was exactly where you are. What decision, what poor action is keeping you from being right where he is?

 I never thought I would ever be homeless, but here I am washed away from the face of society, residing in the valleys in-between what is and what could be.