no day is a waste. no life is either.

"you don't have to have a reason to live to stay alive." still we aren't sure if we have a reason to live or not while we still keep on living. waiting. sometimes the wait is reason enough. dying is being dead whether you're rich, famous, poor, known, or forgotten for years. money or lack of makes no difference. some people take no pity for the homeless, they're hopeless and homeless. they judge them as losers that are stuck without a place to live because they don't have a job- and they don't have a job because they don't WANT a job. they got an addiction so it's their own fault. their families don't want anything to do with them and that's their own fault too. they cut ties, move states, get kicked out of their homes, lose their homes or are evicted. yes. sometimes that is the case. but a lot of times, it's not. some of them are so rude, so hateful, that the only change you give them is changing your mind about helping them out. still a life is a life. no matter how you spend it, or how it's taken away.

home is where the heart is, but you can still have heart even without a home.

i'm a sucker for true stories, i like fact over fiction. i think to me it somehow has a bigger impact when it's actually happened instead of somebody thinking it up. there's a book i read a few weeks ago that was a true crime story. this couple named the copelands hired homeless people from a nearby mission to tend their farms. not to mention open bank accounts and write bad checks to buy cattle with. back then, nobody really did bad check scans or had a way to ask a bank if there was really $35,000 in this account, they took each other's word. afterwards, ray copeland would then would kill the homeless men with a single shot through the back of the head. the longest they got to live was til the next cattle sell or til the checks came in the mail. ray copeland had no remorse about what he was doing and couldn't care less because it was like he almost felt he was doing the homeless a favor. one painless quick shot to the back of the head instead of making it day by day asking for change and hoping to catch a lucky break. actually, the truth is from what i can tell, ray didn't care about anyone but himself. not even his wife and children. ray, after years of writing bad checks himself and taking the blame, thought he finally had a flawless plan to fuck the system. luckily, one wise homeless guy caught onto the loopholes in the story, and got away. he immediately told authorities, who at first had trouble finding bodies and any proof of what they were told- but soon after did. now the couple is/was on death row. oldest couple to ever make it on there. as i was reading it, it was funny how the guy that got away reminded me of this person right away.

you wouldn't want to be near him enough to hug him no matter how sorry you felt for him but you'd still give him your coat right off your back. beat up almost daily while being robbed by kids barely 15 or 16 outside of elementry schools, he kept going to the mission and sleeping every day. when telling of what happened and why he had a black eye or bruises, he would shrug it off as if he deserved what people did to him, as if it was a part of life he had to accept. it made me think of somebody kicking a puppy that can't defend itself. it was sickening to hear about. though every single day no matter what happened the day before he remained a nice guy- waking up and repeating his day the same way. never angry. he was an alcoholic drinking mouthwash and swearing it was for his teeth. 48 years old. used to work at subway, used to work at a dj station, now passing out in front of buildings with a bottle of mouthwash in his hand. he has a daughter somewhere. she either doesn't care or doesn't know how her father ended up, such as i don't even know where mine is- he could be homeless for all i know. it is just that someone somewhere down the line forgot family takes care of one another. he kept going the same ways, he knew his days were numbered and yet only counted the change he got each day to make it by. it's sad to think about life, i used to wonder how he kept going and why he kept going. instead of saving up, he'd use the money people gave him to buy mouthwash. once and a while food. he had a lot of money some days, he could have saved up and got back on his feet (even though the hospital amputated his toes instead of trying to save them last winter) but he chose not to. but i don't think anyone chooses to die. i don't think anybody chooses to be beyond saving they just somehow end up that way. there just somehow someway stops being that option. homeless. abandoned. dumped. rejected. but nobody wants to be hopeless. not even people that kill themselves. they just weren't strong enough.

life is short. there is no way to sugarcoat this: i see homeless people and i'm thankful that i have a place to live, i see disabled people and i'm lucky that i have both my legs and both of my arms, that i can see and i can hear, that nothing is wrong with me. i can't imagine how i would feel so i feel blessed to be able to not know exactly what it's like to really suffer. to be blind, to be in a wheelchair, to be without hearing. are you thankful for that? i really admire anyone who is disabled and still living every day, still making it through. anyone who is down and out on their luck but keeps waking up because they can. i don't think it ever really registers to anybody though, just how lucky they are to be alive and healthy until somebody almost dies. until somebody does die. then life suddenly becomes very short. i plan on spending a lot more time with my grandparents, a lot more time with people that if they died tomorrow, part of me would too.

whatever you do, just wake up and be thankful that you are reading this, that you are alive, and that you are doing well- even if you are dumped, rejected, suffering from a broken heart. be thankful even if you forget this tomorrow, be thankful for today. and god really doesn't give us more than we can handle until we stop trying to. so don't stop trying.

"you are a good person, you know that?"

r.i.p alan.