Full Circle Homecoming

The Inevitable

Thankfully, the card Brad gave me did have money on it. But not enough for much. Fuel and food would deplete the balance quickly. With the first 24 hours of shock out of the way, grieving time was quickly coming to an end. It was time to face the facts. I was homeless and alone. The $900 left on the card was only enough for food and fuel for a few more days. The two hardest things to come to terms with are being unlovable and abandoned again. There was nothing I could do about either. The next on the list was being homeless. That I had to rectify as immediate as possible. It was winter and my options were few. The only things I had for communication were my cell and my laptop, which were both useless without Wi-Fi. The truck stop I stayed at only offered metered Wi-Fi for a cost.

I have never been a fan of fast food with being born allergic to most of the garbage put in processed foods. But, fast food joints are well known to have free public Wi-Fi. It was too windy and cold to do anything else, so I sat in a McDonald's parking lot to take advantage of the free Wi-Fi.

Social media accounts were damning. It was the same people posting their daily posts and shares, going about their normal daily life. After answering a few PMs regarding the scheduling of fundraisers and events I had spent years devoted to, I changed all my accounts to private that I needed and deleted what I did not. Brad made it clear that I was to pretty much fall off the face of the earth. To my dismay, there had been nothing circulating about Brad putting me out and disappearing. It took me most of the day to delete friendships and followers. I really didn't want to share my shame and humility. I most certainly didn't need to leave communication lines open to my former life. It was time to recreate myself, my identity, and start creating a new life. My world was over, and it was not coming back.

This was the third 'life' lost. Well, second. I lost my life with my biological parents before I had ever known it. I lost, willingly, the life I was handed growing up when I met Brad. To be honest, I ran away from that life and never looked back. With Brad, I had a wonderful life. I was so looking forward to walking down the aisle and making it permanent. We had accomplished a majority of the goals we had laid out before getting married. Both of our vehicles were paid off. I just sent the final check for his student loans. We had rented a nice home we intended to buy after getting married. Credit cards were paid off monthly, and everything else went into savings. Savings we were going to use for the wedding and a substantial down payment on the house. Our goal was to pay for half of the house with our down payment.

Though a painful reminder of good times with Brad, I guess I should be thankful to have a new car that was low mileage, still under warranty, and recently platted for the next two years. My car had been a birthday present for my 30th birthday from Brad. We had celebrated two successful years of my in home bakery. I needed a bigger vehicle for transporting larger deliveries to customers. We looked at a lot of new vehicles before I nailed down what it was that I wanted. Each time I found one, Brad convinced me to hold off making the purchase. He always had the logical excuse to wait until after the first of the year to make sure I had the tax deductions needed for the following year. With my home-based businesses, I was able to write off most of my expenses. This included several of our living expenses. Phone, mileage, clothing, makeup, hair cuts and styles, along with partial rent, water, electricity, and trash were all write-offs for my business. The business really didn't take that much work. I kept a limit of 100 special order cakes a year. The low end was $250, with $200 being my labor. Half of the specialty cakes I made every year were $1000 or more. The first year, I cleared over $50,000 after expenses to make cakes and cupcakes. The second year, I doubled that. I did some catering for cupcakes and baked goods for special events. The reality was I only worked about three days a week. It was very painful to delete my social media accounts for the business and cancel upcoming orders.

The house was leased in Brad's name. In hindsight, I could have made it work with the bills and house if I hadn't left. I almost turned back several times. But, I couldn't quit the voices in my head of Brad's text to everybody we knew. Who could be after Brad to the point that he tossed me out and left, walking out of his life? Why would they be after me? Brad had a successful career in commercial real estate after getting his masters in engineering. We had the most uneventful lifestyle. Neither of us drank alcohol or did drugs. We didn't gamble. Our free time away from the house was spent at public events promoting business or fundraisers for our pet projects. If we had children, we would have been the perfect middle-class PTO parents. The only things missing in our lives were the children and the marriage certificate. Poof, gone in one day.

You cannot apply for jobs with no address. To be honest, you cannot do much without address, phone number, and bank account. Without the finances to get any of those necessities, there was just one option left. I needed to find some sort of homeless program. How ironic life can be. I have spent a lot of time fundraising and organizing for charities. One of those being the domestic violence shelters for battered women. The three local domestic violence shelters were places I would regularly deliver my test batches, left over cupcakes, and monthly birthday cake for the residents. Every month, around the middle of the month, I would make a special sheet cake for everybody at the shelter who had birthdays that month. Often, it was children who were displaced during their birthdays. I would always walk away with joy and pain for those in the shelter. Pain because of the circumstances they were in. Some came from some pretty terrifying situations. Joy, from the laughter and smiles that something as simple as a decorated cake with their name on it brought to everybody. I called them my monthly therapy sessions. No matter what was not pleasant in daily life was mitigated by seeing so many faces in peril trying to get their lives changed.

Who would have thought that I would find myself also homeless and looking over my shoulder? They knew who was looking for them. I had no clue who could be looking for me. Brad was never a liar, so the concerns started to build. Who was going to be looking for me? Who was I supposed to be running from?

The only answer that sounded somewhat rational for my situation was to start looking at homeless shelters and programs. At least I had email and Wi-Fi while parked in fast food parking lots. The only thing I knew was that I did not want to be in southeast Oklahoma in the winter sleeping in my car. I had to find someplace warmer that wasn't too far away. Texas and Louisiana were going to be my options.