Something Is Wrong...
He Was In Our Kitchen...
By wecandoit7
I haven't posted much on here, for one reason or another. For a long time, it was timidity. For a longer time, it was my job. For the past several months, it has been a number of projects I have undertaken to further my career. And for the past several weeks, it has been because I had a life-threatening health emergency, a minor (but probably life-saving) surgery, and a lethargic recovery period. However, I have come to regard the people at the other end of These United Internets as something of an extended family... so please allow me to share some thoughts on a very personal matter.
About an hour ago, I chased an intruder from my family's home. The police have come and gone, but there's nobody else to talk to at this hour. And I need to talk. So, please read on.
It's a humble house, on a humble street in one of Akron's most humble neighborhoods. It's a city in decline, in a state that may or may not be able to recover from more than a decade spent under the heel of the Republican party.
But, for now, it's home. It's the place I come home to for holidays and the place I came home to when I needed time off from the frenetic pace of New York City. I've been here a few months, and just tonight I was getting ready to plan my return to New York.
I'm 27, and the family has always been poor. My biological family fragmented when I was 5, my mother died when I was 12... and I was adopted by dear friends of the family. That is the home I am staying in right now.
To understand the rest of this (rather scatterbrained, I fear) diary, it is important to note that I have an excellent record of achievement, largely due to my upbringing. If my biological mother gave me the freedom and courage to dream, my adoptive family gave me the discipline to accomplish the dreams. My teachers had high expectations of me, and they pushed me to meet them. As a result, I am on a path to be free of the poverty that I grew up in.
On Sunday night, I was in our kitchen making a sandwich when I heard something on the basement stairs. It sounded like footsteps, but I assumed it was an animal. I glanced down the stairs but saw nothing. I closed the door to the basement stairs and thought nothing of it. What I didn't know was that as I prepared my sandwich, a man had been in our basement, hiding from me. I don't know if he got food that night or not.
Tonight (the early hours of Tuesday morning), sometime past 4 AM, I again heard strange noises in the house. There was someone in the kitchen. At first, I thought it was my adoptive mother. I poked my head out of my bedroom door and saw a light in the kitchen. ... I went to check it out, turning on every light in the house as I went. I turned a corner, and there was a man. A stranger.
He was in our kitchen.
I screamed in that guy-in-his-20's sort of way, and I shouted at him to get out of our house. He didn't move. He couldn't have been much younger than me. A blur of thoughts raced through my head, as I shouted at him again and chased him out the kitchen door.
I locked it behind him, called the police... and immediately felt a deep sadness wash over me. He was in our kitchen - not in our living room. He wasn't stealing our TV, or the fancy laptop I brought back with me from New York City. He was stealing food. He was hungry, and he had discovered the secret to jimmying our side door open.
I couldn't help but wonder what about this young man's life path had led him to the point of breaking into other people's houses to steal food. Was he a runaway? Was he just unemployed? Unemployment is rampant around here; I myself have begun to consider myself as "unemployed," as my savings have dried up and I have unsuccessfully tried to pry a job from the metaphorical hands of Ohio's broken economy. And I have two degrees - thanks to the blessing of high expectations. Still, it's next to impossible. What must it be like for someone who doesn't have the blessing of an education? How much harder? How much more hopeless?
What if I had been abandoned, in my own hour of need? Where would I be?
He did no real harm. He had no weapon that I saw. He never spoke, never raised a hand. When threats were made, I was the one who made them.
On some level, of course, I feel proud that I defended my family's home - as far as such a "defense" counts. On another level, I wish I had offered him a sandwich. Granted - it is never acceptable to invade another person's home. But this is a symptom. This is a sign.
Something is wrong. Seriously wrong.
I've always lived in bad neighborhoods, with the exception of one halcyon year in Midtown Manhattan. Most people I know have been robbed - of stereos, of TV's, of VCR's, of computers. Not of food. This is new. This wasn't some desperate, homeless lunatic. This was just a guy in his 20's, trying to survive.
I don't know what it portends about anything. But I now know, first hand, that someone in the world was so hungry and so alone last night that he broke into my house so that the pain in his stomach would subside.
He was in our kitchen.
I wish he hadn't been.
But since he was there... I'm relieved to have discovered that he did get away with a little food.
By wecandoit7
I haven't posted much on here, for one reason or another. For a long time, it was timidity. For a longer time, it was my job. For the past several months, it has been a number of projects I have undertaken to further my career. And for the past several weeks, it has been because I had a life-threatening health emergency, a minor (but probably life-saving) surgery, and a lethargic recovery period. However, I have come to regard the people at the other end of These United Internets as something of an extended family... so please allow me to share some thoughts on a very personal matter.
About an hour ago, I chased an intruder from my family's home. The police have come and gone, but there's nobody else to talk to at this hour. And I need to talk. So, please read on.
It's a humble house, on a humble street in one of Akron's most humble neighborhoods. It's a city in decline, in a state that may or may not be able to recover from more than a decade spent under the heel of the Republican party.
But, for now, it's home. It's the place I come home to for holidays and the place I came home to when I needed time off from the frenetic pace of New York City. I've been here a few months, and just tonight I was getting ready to plan my return to New York.
I'm 27, and the family has always been poor. My biological family fragmented when I was 5, my mother died when I was 12... and I was adopted by dear friends of the family. That is the home I am staying in right now.
To understand the rest of this (rather scatterbrained, I fear) diary, it is important to note that I have an excellent record of achievement, largely due to my upbringing. If my biological mother gave me the freedom and courage to dream, my adoptive family gave me the discipline to accomplish the dreams. My teachers had high expectations of me, and they pushed me to meet them. As a result, I am on a path to be free of the poverty that I grew up in.
On Sunday night, I was in our kitchen making a sandwich when I heard something on the basement stairs. It sounded like footsteps, but I assumed it was an animal. I glanced down the stairs but saw nothing. I closed the door to the basement stairs and thought nothing of it. What I didn't know was that as I prepared my sandwich, a man had been in our basement, hiding from me. I don't know if he got food that night or not.
Tonight (the early hours of Tuesday morning), sometime past 4 AM, I again heard strange noises in the house. There was someone in the kitchen. At first, I thought it was my adoptive mother. I poked my head out of my bedroom door and saw a light in the kitchen. ... I went to check it out, turning on every light in the house as I went. I turned a corner, and there was a man. A stranger.
He was in our kitchen.
I screamed in that guy-in-his-20's sort of way, and I shouted at him to get out of our house. He didn't move. He couldn't have been much younger than me. A blur of thoughts raced through my head, as I shouted at him again and chased him out the kitchen door.
I locked it behind him, called the police... and immediately felt a deep sadness wash over me. He was in our kitchen - not in our living room. He wasn't stealing our TV, or the fancy laptop I brought back with me from New York City. He was stealing food. He was hungry, and he had discovered the secret to jimmying our side door open.
I couldn't help but wonder what about this young man's life path had led him to the point of breaking into other people's houses to steal food. Was he a runaway? Was he just unemployed? Unemployment is rampant around here; I myself have begun to consider myself as "unemployed," as my savings have dried up and I have unsuccessfully tried to pry a job from the metaphorical hands of Ohio's broken economy. And I have two degrees - thanks to the blessing of high expectations. Still, it's next to impossible. What must it be like for someone who doesn't have the blessing of an education? How much harder? How much more hopeless?
What if I had been abandoned, in my own hour of need? Where would I be?
He did no real harm. He had no weapon that I saw. He never spoke, never raised a hand. When threats were made, I was the one who made them.
On some level, of course, I feel proud that I defended my family's home - as far as such a "defense" counts. On another level, I wish I had offered him a sandwich. Granted - it is never acceptable to invade another person's home. But this is a symptom. This is a sign.
Something is wrong. Seriously wrong.
I've always lived in bad neighborhoods, with the exception of one halcyon year in Midtown Manhattan. Most people I know have been robbed - of stereos, of TV's, of VCR's, of computers. Not of food. This is new. This wasn't some desperate, homeless lunatic. This was just a guy in his 20's, trying to survive.
I don't know what it portends about anything. But I now know, first hand, that someone in the world was so hungry and so alone last night that he broke into my house so that the pain in his stomach would subside.
He was in our kitchen.
I wish he hadn't been.
But since he was there... I'm relieved to have discovered that he did get away with a little food.
