Unmet Expectations
Mike reflects on the hardships of being unhoused for 11 months, contrasting his former life as a high-earning professional with his present reality "on tour" across various cities, and lamenting the lackluster response to WANDA and the Street-SMART app he’s developed.
This is Mike George coming at you live from Olde Towne East in Columbus, Ohio, on a quite dreary Sunday morning, 9 December 2023. It’s a bit of a shitty morning, but I remind myself it could always be worse; at least we don’t have rain. It’s mid-December, yet my mental clock still thinks it’s November, probably because I’ve heard that Mariah Carey Christmas song fewer than 3 times so far.
I’m sitting here hoping for a brunch crowd, but honestly, I’m just exhausted and approaching burnout. It’s been 11 months since I had my own place, 11 months of being on the streets. I’ve grown to love the term "on tour" instead of "homelessness" because it sounds more glamorous, like I’m on a bus going somewhere — just not a Greyhound… But the truth is, I’m disappointed in everything right now on a cosmic level. I’ve put myself in this little cloud, and it can really poison things.
One constant in this saga has been my beloved WANDA. Being "on tour" has shown me the real cross-section of humanity — the kindness and the crap — beyond the little socioeconomic bubbles of work and school. I’ve wandered through 4 cities in the last 11 months: Columbus, New Orleans, Mississippi, and Alexandria. Columbus wins for tolerability, though I’m biased because I used to live here as a "bougie ass bitch" professional, but this second time around feels like a bad movie sequel. As I often say, “the first one’s always free, but the next you have to pay for…”
As the holidays get closer, it’s harder to paper over the pit of existential dread. I’m a 37-year-old engineering expert with a Master’s degree from a high-ranked university. I have all the ingredients for that boring professional lifestyle I used to hate, and yet, here I am. Sometimes the "spackle" and "caulk" I put over the cracked drywall of my life just melts away, and the despair is right there again. I try to remind myself of my favorite rule: happiness equals reality minus expectations. I try to keep my expectations at zero because people, places, and things will always disappoint you, but the older you get, the harder it is to keep them from rising.
I don’t know if the world is breaking me or if the caliber of people has just diminished. I used to be so good at finding reasons to smile, but the longer this goes on and the colder it gets, the more my patience wears down. I’m proud I haven’t had a major mental breakdown in 11 months, but this is not tenable. I thought leaving my "bougie bubble" would give me more empathy and make me more relatable, but I just find myself getting angrier.
I try to hold onto the random, untelevised joys — the boring mundanity of a neighbor saying hello — because the media only sells doom and gloom. Even my "grandiose" ideas for WANDA haven't panned out. I thought I could entertain people and make enough to buy a sandwich every day, but she’s been more of a liability than a revenue-generating asset. People’s reactions to her range from seeing her as a weapon to total indifference.
It boggles my mind how hard it is to get even one person to engage with my initiatives, like my Street-SMART app — a crowdsourced resource map for people on the streets. I’ve poured thousands of dollars and endless time into these projects, only to be met with indifference or told I should just "get a job". It feels like a failure on many levels.
I’m broadcasting this episode, because my scheduled street performance, "WANDA Psyched," was rained out by the miserable weather. I look at the two viewers watching out of 2,000 "friends" and realize that’s the proportion of people I can actually resonate with anymore. I don't even have a good signoff. I’ll just implore you to check out my shitty, disconnected website, specifically the bits on Wanda and Street-SMART. Just... give a fuck for a second. This is Mike George from a bleak Columbus morning. Take care of yourselves, and take care of somebody else.
