Chapter One: How Do You Do?

I'm a homeless guy; living on the edge of existence by day and sleeping on a concrete slab at night. It's a truly tough way to live, but it's funny. Other people seem to mind more than I do. As human beings we all need to find some kind of purpose for our own existence, and I've found mine. In the big picture lifestyle, in some ways, is a mere formality.



Before I became homeless I was living a pretty comfortable life. I was in a long term relationship calling a nice condo in a ritzy part of Long Beach California home. I was an assistant manager at Starbucks, at the top of my retail class. I was driving around in a new truck with plenty of money left over to buy clothes and shoes and eat whatever I wanted to eat. My ex and I would buy ourselves an expensive dinner out on the town once a week and go out to eat breakfast on our days off. Good food was such a wonderful luxury in retrospect. I loved to cook [a kitchen and a stove-another great luxury!]. I enjoyed cooking Chinese. I had two woks and a bamboo steamer. I specialized, though, in cooking Mediterranean. One of my favorite kitchen aromas' comes from garlic lightly sauteing in a non-stick pan coated with virgin olive oil.



Sometimes it seemed the comforts I enjoyed would last a lifetime. Now those comforts seem lost to hazy memory and the passage of time. Indeed, it was another life entirely. But still I find day to day happiness in spite of how I live. And my life has more purpose and meaning than I ever realized before, even when I was living in the lap of material satisfaction. How did I get here? How can I feel more human [in the good sense] than at any other time in this silly little lifetime of mine? Well, let me tell you!



Next up: The Brother I Never Knew.