I stood in line for the grocery and felt my eyes becoming misty again. Stop crying, Sarah. Stop it! I couldn’t stop the moist tears from bubbling over my eyelids. They continued to form, relentlessly streaming down my puffy cheeks.
I was breaking down at the self-checkout line at a Ralphs grocery store. Nobody noticed. I was scanning items alone, which is exactly how I felt, on my own, unfathomably alone.
This was the aftereffect of working at a homeless shelter in Los Angeles, complete shock, and the inability to control my tears.
***
They called it a “retreat.” This was not a retreat. The shelter these homeless people slept in sat in the heart of Hollywood, next to a loud, angry freeway that buzzed with cars round-the-clock. It was maddening. Silence was impossible here. My ears rang after one day. No wonder people on the street curse under their breath so frequently. Relentless noise would drive anyone to madness.
The smells around the building heightened the atrocity of this space. Street odor, undisposed trash, urine, and a steady stream of cigarette smoke wafted in the air around me. I put my mask on just to breath. Above us, a coat of smog clouded the sky. It blocked all the clouds, leaving only a blanket of soot-colored, dismal gray above us. How could you imagine a better life when the sky above you is as ashen as the gray buildings around you?
The interior of the shelter was no better than the sky. The room was covered in dust. The walls were a muted beige color, stacked together by cinderblocks. There was no artwork on the walls, no inspiring quotes, not even a window to gaze out. It was a room completely devoid of colors, another space that echoed the words forgotten.
The entire place needed to be renovated, but there was no budget for that. Their rarely is money for noble acts of goodness, for non-profit organizations aiming to make this world a better place. The space these people slept in felt like a prison, but these people had not committed a crime.
In most cases, criminal acts happened to them. Rape, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, physical abuse, abandonment. Somebody hurt them, and now they were forced to be here.
This shelter is one of the most “desired” to stay in. This is because it’s a small and intimate space. The volunteers and employees are allowed to pray. We pray over the people and with the people. Love is felt, and yet if depression had a face, it would be this place.
***
I wanted to get back to volunteering, help serve those experiencing homelessness, and make a difference in my city. I felt led to be here, but once I got here it was far different than I imagined.
These people were so traumatized that many of them didn’t talk or they never stopped talking, but not to me, to themselves. Most couldn’t even form a complete sentence anymore. Years without regular communication seemed to jumble around the words in their head.
I didn’t feel like I was pouring into people who had fallen on hard times. I felt like I was in a mental institution.
***
I sat next to a man who looked past me, not at me. I pulled up a chair next to a guy that stared at the floor for the entire day.
Then, I settled on a bench, across from a woman who stretched her arms every five seconds across her chest. You would think she were in training for the Olympics the way she constantly winded up her arms. Instead, she was sitting here with me, and a giant puzzle scattered between us.
“Can you help me find this piece?” I pointed to the image of a blowfish on the puzzle box.
She stared at me, had a conversation with herself, then stretched her arms wide across her chest again.
I looked at the puzzle box propped up between us. Gary Sanders paints scenic images of all the majestic places in the world. It felt wrong to read about stunning scenic places in the world when I was sitting here with people who hadn’t seen anything for years but these terrible noisy freeways and sidewalks lined with acrid tents.
I looked back up at the woman. She was still stretching, carrying on about some uncle in Alabama. I encouraged her to do the puzzle with me again, as I was instructed to do, but she continued to ignore me. I stared at the 500 puzzle pieces in front of me. I became so bored sitting there, I read the puzzle box, three times.
I wondered why we were urging homeless people to do puzzles? What if we treated them like a friend instead?
I looked back up at the woman, still ignoring me and talking to herself. I decided to try something different. I would talk to her like she was my lifelong friend.
“You know what?” I leaned over with a smirk. “I hate puzzles.” And I do.
The woman stopped talking. She grinned and nodded her head. For the first time, she looked directly at me. She didn’t stretch or talk to herself. Her eyes flickered like she wanted to respond, maybe even laugh. Was this a breakthrough?
When I spoke to the woman as if she was my friend her mental health condition, the constant episode she seemed to live in, for a moment vanished. She returned to stretching her arms wide across her chest and conversing with herself, but I had seen a glimpse of a person with thoughts, feelings, and ideas. I had seen Kimmy.
Perhaps, this is all these people needed, to be treated like a person, not a problem or a condition.
***
I looked around at our dismal surroundings as more cigarette smoke filled the air around us. Kimmy rubbed her nose. I coughed. I stared at the hard brick walls next to us. There was not a plant, a tree, or anything green in our vicinity for miles. Nature doesn’t thrive when depression is alive.
I couldn’t believe this shelter was supposed to be a sanctuary for them, a retreat, a getaway.
If I was forced to live in a place like this, maybe I would start having conversations with myself too. It seems much more entertaining to talk to yourself than do a 500-word puzzle of an ocean filled with blow fish with a person you’ve never met before.
Loneliness is a battle. Community can fight it, but when you don’t have anyone to turn to maybe your only friends become the ones you make up in your head? Most of these people have been without consistent communication for years. These people aren’t dangerous. They are lonely. It is not drugs, disease or poverty that has killed their brain cells. It is loneliness.
Constant solitary has corrupted them.
This is what I learned on my first day serving at a homeless shelter in Los Angeles.