In the summer of 1992 I was homeless. That is, I had no fixed address. Although I spent nights outdoors sporadically, I was usually able to sleep on people’s floors or couches or whatever they could offer for a night or two.

After exhausting the goodwill of friends I finally found a room to rent in an upstairs apartment belonging to a friend of a friend. It was no picnic living there, but it was a semi-permanent set up that got me off the streets long enough to pull myself together a bit.

Before the room for rent came, there were strangers who showed up when I least expected it. A guy showed me where the soup kitchens were and I was able to eat whatever was available most mornings for breakfast before another day racing around town delivering packages and getting documents to appropriate courthouses on my cheap Schwinn upright bicycle.

I did whatever I could to get enough food to make it through another day of riding, and spent whatever money I could scrounge in the evenings to get myself a quart of Busch Beer.

I spent the evenings with a friend sitting outside the mob of messengers, all hanging around together exchanging stories and antics from the day. Many of them still had their walkies on waiting for the next dispatched call for work that would carry in to the late evening hours.

The group was tightly knit. Camaraderie forged through years of mutual experience and hardship.

This would not be a period of freedom and adventure, as I sometimes find myself reminiscing it to be. This proved to be a hardscrabble fight to belong someplace. To make a name for myself. To prove my worth in this world, even if just to myself.

I was never cut out for the bike courier world, nor did I ever leave my mark as a particularly interesting character to be remembered for years to come; in the annals of messenger history.

What I did do was this: I proved to myself that against all odds, I was a survivor. I eventually made it through a rough three year patch making a meager living doing something that felt unbearable, even torturous at times and it didn’t kill me. I lost myself in a world of overindulgence and still made it to the other side.  At times my loneliness felt as though it would swallow me with such ferociousness that I thought might finally end me. It never did.

I wasn’t entirely alone.  I had help from family, friends and strangers along the way.  But as all of us facing dark portions of our paths in this life, I had to make the tough decisions that would ultimatelu=y make me or break me on my own.