Hoping For Home

Street singing

As you could have already guessed from the title, I street sing for a living. I love to sing and it's one of the easiest ways for me to get money.

I go to my usual corner, set my backpack aside, remove the guitar case from my shoulder and carefully set it on the ground. I slowly open the case and take the beautiful guitar that once belonged to my grandma, in my embrace.

I usually sing while the girls are at school and take small breaks for time to time. Then, I separate the money I earned into 4 envelopes in my backpack. Each envelope has a tag: 'food' 'savings' 'school' 'Mrs. Reynolds'.

40% of what I earn goes to the 'food' envelope. 20% goes to the 'school' envelope which is for school matters such as field trips and stuff like that since the system gives us enough money to pay for education only. Another 30% goes to 'Mrs. Reynolds' since every time she comes for her pay day she claims some of our money. She knows I don't go to school to earn money and she couldn't care less. She always 'asks' for a big amount of money from us, of course I give it to her. I know what she's capable of. She's basically like 'I let you live in this house, now give me taxes'. The evil queen herself. She's so selfish it gets on my nerves, there's no doubt she has no heart.
Lastly 10% goes for 'savings'. I sometimes use these savings when I didn't earn enough money for any of the other three envelopes. It's basically like a wildcard. And when I do have enough money I save it up so it can maybe be useful sometime in the future.

That's my dailey routine. Sing, separate the money, buy food, pick up the girls, make sure they do their homework, tuck them into bed, go to sleep.

The best part of the week is obviously the weekend. The girls don't have school and we can spend quality time with the each other. We usually just go to the park and enjoy ourselves the best we can.

Back to reality, I slowly run my fingers through the strings thinking for a good first song. I finally decide to do Amnesia by 5sos. Yeah that's a good idea. A perfect song to start my day.

After a couple songs, I decide it's time to take a break cause my throat kind of needs it. So I put my guitar away grab it with one hand and grab my backpack with the other, then I start to walk to the familiar 'Mario's' coffee shop and take a seat at my usual table, a table near the window.

Mario, the owner, starts to walk my way once he realizes I'm here. "Hey kiddo! How you doin'?" Says Mario with a funny accent and I give a small chuckle in return

"Everything's cool! How bout' you?" I say with a funny accent too. Mario is a funny guy, I actually call him 'uncle' or 'uncle Mario'. I've grown quite fond of him.

"How's the business going kid?" Hey says now with his normal voice as he grabs a chair, turns ir around and sits on it like a true cowboy.

"Actually, today the malls pretty crowded and I haven't counted the money yet but from the looks of it, today's gonna be a good day. And I'm only on my first break!" I say as I describe my day.

"Great to hear niece" he says as if I was her real niece. I would definitely be lost without uncle Mario. He's the best parent figure I could ever have. "Listen Ethan told me to call him down as soon as you entered that door. So I'ma go get him" he's says standing up and putting the chair back in place.

"Really? He never wants to come down this early" I say taking a look at my watch. It's only 10:45 but Ethan is like a hibernating bear.

"I know! I was as surprised as you are!" Mario says before he leaves.

In the mean time I just sat there looking through the window watching carefully as people come and go. People with their families, children with their parents, grandpas and grandmas enjoying the beautiful sunny day. I wish I had that. I hope one day I will.