My Life Without: Day 1

I woke up many times during my sleep at the library. A little after 3:00 PM is when I finally got out of there. I probably slept around 4 hours. That wasn't nearly enough, but I knew that tonight I needed someplace to stay. I got up, still feeling mildly insane and walked. Interesting note: I also woke up feeling deeply pure. I don't know why, but I felt more pure than I ever have and it seemed as if a voice was letting me know that I was such. It was pretty cool. I knew of a place called Hard Times Cafe from my friend Nate and about where it was. Plus, I thought that if I could get to a computer with internet access (remember the local library I knew about wasn't open on mondays) I could find some places to stay and hopefully get some food. I was getting hungry. I journeyed in a direction that I was told was by the University. It sort of was, but when I got to University Avenue I didn't know which way to go and I ended up walking 15 blocks in the wrong direction, then I walked the 15 blocks back and another 20 blocks to boot. Then hit the university. Then, after another couple miles of walking I found the library. When I got there it was going to close in 20 minutes. The computer I was directed too couldn't really access much beyond the University library stuff, but I did find the location of some stuff on google maps and then set out to find Hard Times Cafe. It was on Riverside avenue. Not having my bearings being in an unfamiliar place as I was and beginning to see things in a very surreal manner as I was the night before, I decided riverside was probably down by the river. It wasn't. It wasn't even close. The road I took down by the river ended up being a scenic route that was difficult to get off, it took a couple of miles I would guess. A couple of miles out of my way. Then, when I got off that road, I wasn't sure where I was. Because of the terrain, architecture, and night sky I couldn't see the large buildings of downtown. I guess my direction and made it close enough to see them. My road was winding however and everything I took seemed to be in slightly the wrong direction. My legs were extremely tired and my feet hurt bad. I hadn't eaten anything in over 24 hours, and that was just a few appetizers in the evening before. It was getting late and I was concerned I would not find a bed because I would show up too late.

At this point, I'm seriously considering any 1 of a number of people to get me the heck out of here. I feel myself hallucinating again. I'm in the downtown area, but I cannot find the shelter I google mapped. I'm so mentally out of it and physically barely moving. I don't know how I kept on moving. I knew I wasn't going to call anyone. You guys know how I am. But I didn't know how I was going to make it through another night if I didn't find a place to stay. It was only 8:30 PM I was already cold and had to move to stay warm. But, I finally saw some guys in an area where I thought there were homeless shelters and asked them where I could find a bed for the night. One of them graciously pointed me in the right direction.

I found the Salvation Army Harbor Lights place and spent the night there. Thank God for the Salvation Army. It was pretty cool. They have relatively thin mattresses on the floor set up literally right next to eachother. The mattresses are barely wider than my shoulders. It was pretty stinky and pretty hot down there on the ground. I didn't have a blanket or anything. The man to my left was an obese white man, to my right was a large african american. I played footsie with one, and the other liked to "accidentally" put his hand on my back. I've never been so thankful for a night of sleep in my life.

I'll write about today tomorrow. I'm currently chilling at the Mpls library on the internet. I'm almost out of time though and I'm looking for a place I can grab a meal tonight. If anyone you know is interested in this little saga of mine, send them to it. Pray that now that I can think about more than a place to sleep and more like myself, letting Christ shine in me to those around me would be my primary focus. That's what I really want this trip to be about, but it's changing me more than I thought it would...