Christmas Eve 1982 continued

...in a weird way the snow made me feel safe.

Once the night manager had finished showing us the room, which was clean, but small, and only had one bed; We settled in for the night. I had only one thing on my little mind at the time: Is there a TV and does it work? I had to watch Frosty The Snowman, It was Christmas, and homeless or not, I was determind to watch it. There it was, an old ass set with the antennae on top, looked like it hadn't been used in eons. I walked up to it and turned the little knob to the left of the of the box to see if it worked(wow, I'm old, I remember when televisions had knobs and dials!). The TV came on and God was I disappointed, nothing but snow on the screen, not the least bit as charming at the flakes falling to the ground outside. I was undettered however, and began turning the dial frantically. Still nothing but snow. It was after eight o'clock, and I knew the show was on already, I had to make this TV work; my little brother was watching me and I knew that he wanted to see Frosty as well.

Chrismin (mommy) began unpacking our meager belongings. Seemingly unaware of how serious a matter this was to Misterman and me. I turned the dial again. Nothing. I was about to resign myself to the fact that I was not going to watch any Christmas specials that evening. I Remmember feeling so angry because I knew what we were going through as a family, and I also knew that we were not going to get any Christmas presents that year. I felt that at the very least, God would allow Misterman and me to watch some cartoons as we tried to celebrate the birth of his son. Now, I'm not a religious cat at all, but he did. In an act of sheer frustration, I turned the dial very fast, all the way around and when it stopped, it stopped on Channel two. In New York, Channel two plays all of the holiday cartoons. The picture wasn't very clear at all, but we could hear the show and make out some of the images. When it came on, Misterman who was still in his stroller, yelled "Mommy look, Frosty!" Chrismin stopped unpacking to look at the screen and said: I knew you could do it baby, you're my monkey boo boo mama. I felt safe again. That feeling didn't last very long...

Christmas Eve 1982

Christmas Eve 1982, my mother, my brother and I are homeless. I was six years old. I remember being cold and hungry and just wanting to watch Frosty The Snowman on television. The previous evening we all slept on the floor of a social services office in downtown Manhattan. I guess my mother took us there to get some emergency housing and perhaps a food voucher. I knew we were not in a good situation, my brother was too young to know what was going on. It was very uncomfortable, I remember there being a lot of families there like mine. Mostly women with young children. The place wasn't the least bit appealing to a child, it was a dreary cold welfare office. A pretty sad place to be, let alone sleep, two nights before Christmas.

The following day after waiting for what seemed like forever, My mother was given the address to a motel in Queens and a voucher to pay for a couple of nights stay there. We had to stay in the motel until December 26th, after which we'd have to go back to the welfare office and wait some more. I remember feeling very excited because it was snowing by the time we arrived in Queens. Looking back, I really appreciated the snow that evening. Somehow it made everything seem fine. It was Christmas Eve, and though we'd be staying in a dump of a motel for the next couple of nights, I was comforted by the snow...

I'm 33 and staying around. I don't have a place of my own right now, it's tough. I have more debt than actual dollars. I'm surviving in the concrete jungle of NYC, but barely. It seems that I've been struggling throughout my entire life up to this point. To be quite honest, I'm sick of of it, but I feel like I'm stuck. I'm scared every day, I could definitely use some guidance. I've never had any. I know and I accept that I'm in the situation that I'm in because of choices that I've made. Boy have I made some bad ones, I wish almost every day that I could have done things differently. I guess writing this blog is my attempt at moving forward in life. I want to write a memoir and I suppose this blog will contain a few chapters of it.