By Charles Springer
It is February 1991. My ex-wife had divorced me behind my back, telling the courts that I had abandoned her. The truth was that I had been living platonically with her friend and taking the kids every weekend. I was almost one and half years sober at the time, working for Douglas Aircraft, and hoping to be able to work through our differences so that we could be a family again. My mother and father never divorced, working through their differences and remaining together until my father died in 1996. So divorce was not in my vocabulary. I have not seen my children since then and my father died without seeing his first born granddaughter. My son is now 17 and my daughter is 14. I have missed all the growing years with them. But I saw my ex-wife in 1998 when I was at the Ocean Park Community Center. She was probably there to get signed up for food as we had done sometimes when we went through tough times.
There are many people — both male and female — who are divorced on the streets. Some, like myself, have had their children ripped from them never to see them again. This is one of the most emotionally devastating traumas a person can go through on the streets. It undermines my trust of the opposite sex and tears the heart right out of me every time I think of it. The feelings of inadequacy and remorse, which are only multiplied a thousand fold by living on the streets, infect every scar this divorce left in my heart. The loneliness of being used to having someone in my corner during hard times has never left, even after all these years. This is the pain I carry with me when I meet a woman. This is the pain most of us who are divorced carry around with us on the streets, which causes many of us to be emotionally and mentally unstable. It’s also why drug and alcohol addiction is so prevalent on the streets.
And being stood up makes it even worse. Last summer I had been asked out by a very attractive woman. I was elated and very anxious. I waited and waited and waited. The time for her to show up was about 10 minutes past and I figured I would wait as I know some women have a habit of being “fashionably late.”
But when an hour went by I realized, broken heartedly, I had been stood up. I saw her again and asked what had happened. She said that she had something to do and could not get hold of me because I did not have my phone hooked up at the time. So we made another date, but again the same thing. I was really devastated. The next two times this happened to me were with two separate Japanese girls with whom I go to Santa Monica College. I thought they were my friends and this really hurt me because I had known them for a few years.
The last two times this happened to me was with someone who I had known for some time and had just recently got to know better. I thought she was the best thing since sliced bread and I had grown to really become attracted to her. I asked her out two times, but my job that weekend had left me too exhausted to go to her house. I apologized, asked her out again and she agreed. I went to her house to pick her up to see a movie, showing up around noonish. Her aunt told me that she was refusing to get up and that she had been out until very late the night before. So I went to the movie by myself. When I asked her about it, she said she had forgotten. I was really hurt, but let it go and did a free tattoo design for her to show her there were no hard feelings.
I asked her to the movies again and she agreed again. We were supposed to go after she got off work. But later when I asked her if I should get the tickets, she told me she had something to do. This really hurt me and bought up all the feelings I had earlier described.
This just showed me how unfeeling people can be towards the homeless, without knowing how bad things are with those of us who are carrying these feelings. (Charles Springer is a freelance writer and artist living on the streets of Santa Monica. He)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 8, 2003. Read the original PDF.