Homeless/Home
Photo Courtesy: Adeola Sheehy
BY ADEOLA SHEEHY
It’s the weekend before the new academic year begins and I find myself up late surrounded by forms for the new activities and classes that my children will be beginning in just a few days. My pen hovers over the page, I’m stuck on the second question.
‘What is your address?’
Such a simple question, laid out before me in black and white. These are the ones you answer without thinking, fingers moving while your brain jumps forward, eager to get to the end. The problem is I don’t actually have a home, not right now, not anymore and with one easy question on a standard form, that truth hits home and I cannot breathe.
The steps I took to get here don’t seem to matter much tonight, just the aching ease at which they were walked. I didn’t do anything ‘wrong’, just a combination of events and circumstances in other people’s lives that impacted mine. But I can’t bring myself to write that word, homeless. It has taken on a shape and a weight that had been invisible to me, until it was bound around my hands and neck in intricate knots that I can’t untie.
There is a voice in my head telling me homelessness is the blight of the addicted, or perhaps the uneducated or lazy, or maybe even those people who are running from something or someone. It doesn’t belong to the wholesome family on the holiday greeting card we are all told we should aspire to be. There are rules that good girls follow and while you can push past the ones about being married or in a relationship, or having the ‘right’ body, or the ‘right’ job, this rule feels absolute. I revelled in tearing up the old contracts I felt bound by and joyfully danced down a new path, but now I’ve stumbled and the ground that was once smooth is littered with boulders I can’t seem to see round. Worse still, there is a guilt-riddled certainty that gnaws at my stomach each night, telling me a good mother wouldn’t be homeless with her four children.
You see it would be fine if I could say I chose this. If I could claim to have embraced the life of a nomad, ridding myself of unnecessary materialism in favour of a life free of limitations and full of experiences, travel, and adventure. That would make me the cool mum, but I’m not her either.
The papers slide through my fingers and scatter across the table. I drop the pen and turn my head away from answers that I don’t want to give. How do I explain without marking us out as the very thing my attitude has shown me I am so prejudice against? I fear the pity, the curious looks and conversations that will lead to places I don’t want to go.
During the daylight hours I weave a narrative of exciting change and transformation. I speak of the home as living inside of our family, of travelling with us everywhere we are, even when we are separate. I tell myself and my children of the threads that bond us together, forming a beautiful and indestructible tapestry that will never fade. I believe my words; I know they are true. But the blanket of dark that falls once their breaths even out and a stillness like no other fills our space, brings with it all the mum guilt, anxiety and overwhelm. I am responsible.
From the moment the tiny line appears on the test kit and your hands find their way to your stomach the night brings those feelings, and perversely, it is this idea that saves me tonight. I have coped with the sleepless nights of the first few years, I have paced the hallway with a child whose skin scorches my own. I have worried myself through first days, growing pains and heartaches, and each night the black has slowly turned to grey before the dawn arrived and pushed back the fear.
The phrase ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ has become my constant companion and I have learnt not to fight it but to see it as my parenting fail-safe. The auditor who double checks my work at the end of each day. I won’t ever be certain of the outcome of any of my choices, but I know when made with love and fuelled by the best possible information I can find, well, then I’ve done my best.
The thing is, now I know. I know how quickly life can change in every way that is important. I know how unpredictable this dance is and how little control we really have. It’s cliched but the words I offer my children are the words I should listen to most myself. A family is not a house or any of the things that we build around ourselves to enable a comfortable existence. Family is the swell in your chest when you watch them play, interact with each other, sleep, or just be themselves as they move through the most mundane moments. Family is the knowledge that you are never truly alone, that you have people who love you and will always stand at your back. Family is hope, and that is something I am not short of.
Papers resorted, pen back in hand, I begin to write. I give the information I can, and I make notes in the margins to explain the rest. After all, there will never be one piece of paper that could encompass all that my family is, and as sleep beckons and I turn off the lights, I know I don’t need to try and make us fit.
ADEOLA SHEEHY is an Irish/Nigerian Londoner now living in the New Forest, with her four home educated children. Writing from the crossroads of race, womanhood, and creativity she uses prose to tackle the questions her mind ponders most and poetry to express the feelings closest to her heart. Her experience as a yoga teacher and reiki master are at the root of her goal to encourage others through her words to live a fuller, more aligned life. She is a columnist for The Green Parent magazine and has her own publication on Medium.