This evening we are having DirectTV installed. Now, let me just start this blog by stating how much I absolutely HATE having people in my house that I don't know. After our break-in and robbery a couple years ago, I have this thing about being extremely uncomfortable with strangers in my home. I had no idea it was that BIG of a problem. I started having anxiety and becoming just generally bitchy while he was working away. As I was cooking dinner (and after taking my “crazy pill” so I could relax a little and stop acting like I needed to be admitted), I thought..."geez, I hate having this dude here, but my mom raised me to have SOME manners,” so I offered him a plate of dinner since it looked like it would be a late night for him and it would just be rude to start chowing down without at least asking. Sure enough the man was really hungry and pretty much licked the plate clean. As he ate, he paused and sighed in delight. I would soon know why.
He joked later that I was "hired" and that he'd be stopping by same time tomorrow for dinner once again. After some small talk between him and Jason, I overheard him say something about not having a home. Since I was in the other room, I thought that I'd surely misheard him. Jason was talking to him about how he must be wanting to get home soon since it was getting late and it must be hard to be away like that on daily basis. He casually answered "well, not really. I just sleep in my truck." .....Huh? Seriously??
Jason said "you're shitting me right?!" He continued that he had recently fallen on hard times and just didn't have it in the budget right now to have a place of his own. WOW.
He didn't elaborate too much, but simply said that he's been moving around to be close to his kids whenever his ex-wife moved and it's just been hard. How sad.
Though "Steve" declined, Jason offered him a shower in our guest bathroom and we paid him a little extra for the satellite setup than was owed to him. I guess it was our way of saying Merry Christmas to someone who clearly needed a step up. I feel so bad for him. I mean it wasn't as if he wasn't working and trying to make some money, he didn't act as though he had any kind of addiction (and by now, I think I'm pretty good at detecting that kind of stuff....I've had plenty of practice between my own crazy family and the time I spent working at the SBUX in the 'hood), and he genuinely just seemed down on his luck.
As I sat in the next room wrapping the Christmas gifts I'd purchased for my family, thinking that I am certainly blessed.
Blessed for sure, and not just with material things either. I have a husband who adores me, a family that is always there for me (right or wrong), and I've also been blessed to know love from them, and a few very close friends, in a way I just can't explain great enough to really give you a sense of how fortunate I feel right now.
With a full heart, I am counting my every blessing this evening.
'Tis the season, right?
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