GREEN GABLES

LIVING IN A MOTEL

During my first two years, while living in a motel[in Albany, GA], I was able to save up around $4,000.00 from my meager retirement income. This savings stemmed partly from my hermit's lifestyle, as I spent long hours in that tiny space, online[I had an ACER notebook], and/or writing ARTICLES that I published most often at RetirementOnline.com. I'd write about the motel lifestyle and the economic advantages of cooking one's own meals, in a place with only a microwave oven & a tiny refrigerator for its 'kitchen.'  Many such ARTICLES were published[2013-2014] there, while I interacted with some of the retirees that frequented that electronic forum. Those interactions seemed real enough, but it seemed that I had little in common with them, when it comes to my financial situation[and the kinds of poverty-income restrictions that affect retired persons, depending solely on monthly benefits from Social Security, that my intended 'audience' consisted of].

When I left that motel, in February of 2019, I was required, by my inability to transport/safeguard a lot of things that accumulated while living there, to abandon an estimated $2,000.00-worth of recently acquired office equipment and supplies. I'd also been robbed while living there, and had no physical photoID. After leaving there, I was unable to establish another permanent residence, where I could receive those monthly benefits, now being paid by check. Early in March, last year, I arrived in Thomasville[another southwestern Georgia city] on my bicycle, and it took until February 7, 2020, to begin receiving my retirement income. For all that elapsed time, I was living as a homeless man, and surviving here with no income.

Now, it seems, my only viable option here, is to move into a motel again, and become that frugal hermit, with no real kitchen. My affluent young friends, after learning that I now have access to that backpay[building up during long months spent living on the streets of Thomasville], seem to have suddenly different ideas about who/what I am, and what our relationship should now be. I'm uncomfortable with this icy, sudden change; perhaps their comfort-level has also undergone an uncomfortable change.

Meanwhile, I continue writing my ARTICLES, and publishing them...  trying to actually join some local Church congregation...  looking for a roommate who also benefits from sharing a residence and all the expenses which result...  and trying, above all, to be patient with those around me[especially those that have been helping me out, while in my trying financial Catch-22], while these adjustments to my identity are occurring. I'm trying to develop an objective perception/description of these strange ongoing interactions, so that I can write about that! "See me...  feel me-e-e,...  touch me...  HEAL ME!"