Home?

When he was young, he wasn't afraid of finding himself with nothing but what he wore in a city that was new. Something changed. Now, when he thought of the doorways he had slept in, the rooftops, the subways and the ferries, he felt the hollowness. Without even being there, he felt that lonely pain. He was too old for that now. It probably happened in the past 5 years, this change, and really, most people wouldn't ever consider it a way to go. Homelessness was rough, and without an ambition, a dream to propel you through it you might get stuck. There wasn't a dream. The irony was, for all the ground he had covered, all he had traveled, he felt like he was where he began.

Without being actually homeless, sleeping in shelters or in squats, he was without anywhere he felt was home. A recording on a tape he used to listen to had a professor explaining that home wasn't a place, it was an idea, an abstract idea. It takes courage to believe in a home. Maybe for most people it wasn't anything of significance, but Jacob rarely felt that safety and surety that he associated with a home. So he checked the listings for jobs and kept his ear open for gigs that would let him satisfy the demands school made of him. It all felt like it was moving too slow. The most recent campaign had been a week or so, and was gathering momentum. Until he found a job and a room, he would be in the limbo he had known too much of.

He took his girlfriend's dog out sometimes. It struck him that he wouldn't even think of getting a dog, since he can't even take care of himself without fear. Something wasn't in him, he wasn't something that most everyone else was. Sure, he could get a job, a salary, and a lease, and maybe it would feel better, more like a home, but there would still be something fundamentally different about it all. He was always a visitor.