Homelessness is a Courage Developer

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Who the hell is going to read that crap that you write? You are homeless… a nobody.”

Homelessness has developed a new-found courage within me. In so many areas of my life I feel as if I am moving forward in the roominess of a fresh start. Gone are many earlier reservations of trying something new. 

I have trepidations regarding writing. While I have only been blogging for week, I have made such great progress.

I am an over educated homeless woman. While teachers educate us, they also have the capacity to strip away individuality, imagination, and uniqueness. In the summer 1983, when I was between the 11th and 12th grade, I started taking college classes at Jamestown Community College, beginning with core required writing classes. I enjoyed writing and it came easy for me. I remember peacefully sitting on a classic retro aluminum folding lawn chair on our back patio listening to the birds while writing drafts in a spiral notebook. I earned “A's” in both classes.

Jamestown Community College
Jamestown New York

Moving forward, the Bachelor’s program in Elementary Education required that I have a concentration. Some choices were Reading, Math, Special Education, and English. I chose English. I enjoyed every literature class and “A’s” came easy until I took a class on comedy writing. I ended up with a ‘B’ even though I worked harder in that class than any of my other literature, linguistic, and writing classes. I fervently tried to decipher and emulate exactly what the professor was looking for. I never really got it right.

I moved on to a Master’s Degree Program in Early Childhood Education. While graduate school demands more technical writing like would be in peer-reviewed research journals, I gravitated to the in-depth study of understanding of human behavior called qualitative research. 

I felt good about my writing and research and presented my research and findings at both national and international conferences.

Many professionals feel that qualitative research isn't "real research." The preferred research methodology is still the number-crunching quantitative variety. Qualitative research is scrutinized as biased. However, anytime there are humans involved in any research there will be bias and subjectivity.

I discovered what horror writing could be while working on my Ph.D. One professor was never really satisfied with my papers. There was a VERY SPECIFIC manner in which he wanted me to write. I tried and tried and tried to figure it out and emulate it but I failed miserably to get it right. Unfortunately, the professor I couldn't make happy was my advisor.

I developed a fear of writing. The fear of writing became so bad that it became a challenge for me to turn papers in on time. I went over and over my papers and never felt that they were right  I underwent Behavioral Counseling over this struggle and I also went to the Office of Disability Services to meet with a counselor one on one to go over my papers. None of the half-dozen counselors who read my papers ever found a problem with anything I wrote. I had another student in my classes read my papers. He would switch a few of the words around and the paper would read much better, but I wasn't able to make my advisor any happier with the next paper.

In May of the spring semester, my advisor said that he wanted to see me in his office. I followed him in and sat down. "Paula, I just don’t think that you are quite up to par with the rest of the students in your cohort.” The department gave my Research Assistantship and Tuition Waiver to another student. In reality I was being told I could get a doctorate, but not from this university. He told that I just didn't process information right in my head. This couldn't be happening. I relocated to North Carolina, 13 hours away from my home, and had spent 4 grueling semesters to get to this far. I was not able to attain a Ph.D. because I couldn't afford the tuition.

I am still carrying the fear, but I am dedicated to getting past it and once again enjoy writing. I am a lifetime fan and follower of ‘feel the fear and do it anyway.’ Homelessness has given me an attitude of "it can only get better from here," and I have a fresh courage to try different things to help me feel that I am able to contribute to the betterment of society. I wish I still had the retro lawn chair!

 God is Good All the Time