05/12/2025
Today is a very miserable day — it’s dark, wet and windy. On my way to pick up the kids, I was thinking how lucky and grateful I am for the things that I have; the things we take for granted, like having the possibility to arrive home (yes, I have one) and hush everyone to go and change into warm and dry clothes, while I put the wet clothes and shoes hanging on the various radiators and turn them on to dry everything.
I was also thinking that I need to go shopping today, as I don’t have warm shoes or clothes to be spending the whole night outside on a cold winter night, to raise awareness and funds for homelessness. and Shelter NI that have too amazing projects in the North West of the North of Ireland. The people who are not in the same position as me cannot do most of these things — they can’t just go and have the luxury of buying new shoes or warm clothes to spend one night outside, because that is the reality for so many people every single day, for others is like a russian rollet as tonight they could have a crash bed but tomorrow to called a wee bit later and that bed was gone, as someone got in before you.
It makes me put things into perspective and reflect on how different and difficult life is for a lot of people, and because the majority of us don’t have to think about it, we don’t even realise how lucky and privileged we are.
The theme of this year’s Homeless Awareness Week is , and sometimes it’s difficult to see them because we live in this reality bubble, that majority of people has a home or a place to sleep tonight. But I am sorry to be a bubble buster, there’s so much hidden homelessness too — people living in families’ and friends’ houses, kids still going to school in their uniforms, adults going to their jobs (if they have one, as a lot of times homelessness starts because they lost their job) pretending that everything is alright; a lot of the times they tend not to say anything about their circumstances because they feel shame, or fear of what people will say or think or do and it’s such a massive, heavy thing to carry every single day.
continue on comments
