Part One – I Didn’t Know My People

I was homeless, and the situation with me was I was a health care worker. I was at work and I called my sister, I said, “Hey, I got a little headache.” And I said, “I’m gonna sit down for a minute.” I woke up and I was at Ben Taub.

I’d had an aneurysm. Seizures, and stuff, and all that. That was the first time it had ever happened to me. Kidney was doing pretty bad. I couldn’t remember my memories. I didn’t know my people. This was in 2015.

I remember I was with my sister, but I felt like I didn’t know them, and I left. And I came downtown and stayed. But every time they would come and get me, I would leave. I would sneak off and leave. I don’t know… I didn’t, I didn’t… I didn’t feel like I knew them, really. I remember stuff happening when we were kids and everything, you know… but before I didn’t remember none of that. You know, when you forget it in one day, you forget everything. I forgot everything.

Part Two – I Just Can’t Think

I had never had seizures before in my life until I had this… until I had this, uh… brain surgery. And now I have seizures. And I’ll remember and then I’ll forget something for maybe a week. It’ll come back, “Oh, alright, you know, I passed out, you know, at some time.”

Sometimes I’ll hear something and be like, “I wonder what she’s talking about, just can’t think, I just can’t think…” Saying it to myself. And I got to where I started getting depressed. I did feel sort of… embarrassed, like… I was in health care. I took care of people who went through this problem. And I never thought I would be in this position, you know? It’s ironic, yeah.

Part Three – I’m Not Supposed to be Here

When I went to Salvation (Army), I started… remembering a lot of things. I started reading the newspaper again. And everything started coming back, slowly but surely. I was going through this program through SEARCH, and through The Beacon, and Star of Hope still trying to find me a place to stay.

Because I was tired. Because my mind was coming back to where, you know, “I’m not supposed to be out here, homeless. I’m not supposed to be here.” You know, “What’s going on?” You have to go take care of your business. You have to get up. You gotta catch the bus. You gotta go here. You gotta go to this. You gotta do this. You gotta do this.

You can’t just go one day and then they say, “Hey, here’s a place to stay.” Know what I’m saying? Because you’ve gotta let these places know you’re responsible. And you’re for real.

Part Four – It’s About What You Do

You gotta look at the blessings that we have. We ain’t gotta worry about getting rained on. Getting cold. We’re not staying up under the freeway. I don’t care if I’m sitting here with not a dime in my pocket. Guess what?

Man, I can go in there and lay down. I can eat. And we can talk, you know? Before this, we couldn’t do that. This is a good place and… it don’t matter where you go. It’s all about what you do. If you get the opportunity to make your life better and to live better, you know… then do it. If you don’t, then that’s on you.

Part Five – To Help Your Situation

You know, I’ve been through a lot. Sometimes, you go through a situation to learn about a situation. To help your situation. Some things happen like that for a reason. It all started for something. It’s a situation that, you know, I’ve seen it before but never knew what it was. All the way.

I just… I see now. Now I really see. That’s all I can say.