Have you ever struggled in your life? Maybe, so hard that it seemed that it would never end? Problems slither into your life like an anaconda. Carefully, the sly, scaly creature wraps itself around your feet. It begins to climb slowly up from your ankles to your knees. Before you realized it, the dangerous predatory reptile has made it's way all the way up to your head, and it seems that there is no escape.
Has it ever seemed, like your attempts to reach your goals and aspirations have added up to only, one thing...
You have tried time and time again, but trying never seems to be enough. Nothing seems to give. You get SO close, every time, only to taste bitter defeat. It has to end some day, right?
The preceding, is most certainly the story that has brought myself and my girl 
The obstacle that we have been facing for the last two years, is one of those components that you will find listed in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. In the community of psychology, it is considered virtually impossible to make any drastic life changes without the basement blocks of this chart:
Below, is *"Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs," pyramid chart Image Source
My amazing girl and myself have spent much of our relationship without even the bottom level of this chart. It would be nothing short of a miracle to change even the most fundamental parts of who we were and what we did under those circumstances.
Yet, somehow we have managed to do some miraculous things together. We fell in love when I owned nothing but the clothes on my back and a guitar. She ditched her abusive ex to come live with me in the first tent that I ever owned during my time on the streets. Not only were we on the streets, but we were on the streets in the city that holds the highest crime rate per-capital in all of, Oregon, and believe it or not, the entire U.S.
In that environment, safety is off the table entirely. We often didn't have food or warmth, and we almost never had any rest. This led to heavier and heavier drug use. The drugs were the only thing that kept us going sometimes, and probably even a necessary evil under the circumstances. I am NOT saying drugs are a good thing. Let's be clear....
They are the worst thing that ever happened to my life! They take everything from you, and they leave you with every bit of blame. They pose as your best friend, and they only show up when you're doing good. When you crash and burn, they leave you in your own mess, alone.
Drugs may help a person who is on the bottom to make it through the cold night. It may save them from freezing to death in the winter. Without them, they would have ran out of energy and stopped walking, exhausted. Their will to go on may have diminished, too much, as they waited to die. I am not just saying this. I have REALLY been there!
I once spent four and a half months, walking around in the snow in a city called, Medford, Oregon. Not once did I see the inside of a building during that time, and I often didn't have any food. I walked 60-80 miles a day (I later calculated by using Google maps to gauge the length of my route) just to keep from freezing to death. I slept between 2 and 10 hours a month. When I finally got arrested, I weighed 126 pounds. My rib-cage looked like that of the emaciated cattle shown in sympathy content for abused animals.
...but not where I am HEADED.
When I was in that, horrific state of mind, I was incapable of seeing any further than the next burning step of pain that my thin exhausted legs could make. It was only out of survival instinct. Words had left me. I didn't speak to anyone, ever.
I can tell you this, though: I found something there. Inside of that lost person in the snow. I found out that I don't quit. I found out that I am a survivor. From that point, I went to prison for a year and a half. When I got out, I ended up here. All of this was before I had even met my girl, the love of my life.
She was very dear to me from the start, but we were both in the world of street-life and drug addiction. We were unstoppable forces in our minds and in that world. Even all the loss that we had suffered individually was not enough to break us free of the grasp of heavy drugs. It was not until the pain of using and the loss that it brought to us became too much to bear. The same drugs that had kept us going had caused us to hurt one another, so badly, that we almost lost one another for good.
...and that love, brought forth the desperate initiative, for miraculous change. It brought us back to God, and it saved our lives from the endless denigration of our bodies, minds and spirits. Some of you that read this, may be nay-sayers, but God (or whatever it is that you call the infinite universe and all of it's mechanics and design) had the biggest part of that. The path that we have walked has not been easy, but through the quieting of ourselves, we have obtained a much greater depth and wisdom, together.
Together, we have now had 104 days, clean from heavy drugs. We attack every hurdle that we approach each day, knowing that we will conquer it, through love. It didn't happen instantly, but as the days have piled up, we have been able to look back to see more and more progress. Like the Spartans, we look behind us and see each of the hurdles that we have conquered like slain enemies upon the ground. The blood of those enemies is not a stain upon our past. The sweet smell of their iron is a constant reminder that we have conquered, and that we will keep conquering! So, what is this great, conquered need?
For almost two years, we have not had a home, but today we are sitting warmly inside of our first home. It is mobile, and we own it! It is a 31' Chieftain, and it is bad to the bone. It has a working gen set, and everything else works too!
Here is me, outside of our new RV:
You can't quite see how big it is from this, but you can better see it in comparison to the Ford century behind it, in the following photo:
On top of that, I have just embarked on a journey to make freelance writing into a career. I just got started on Upwork, using some of the things that I have posted on STEEM in my portfolio. I sent four proposals out, and guess what...
Here is one of them:
"Hello, Jonathan! Thank you for your application. You were the very last candidate to arrive to the bidding war and, by then, we'd made a decision to select one of the earlier candidates. But you put in a very significant effort in replying and this left an impression.
I think we might have another job just for you. Let me talk it over with my team to see if we have room this coming week to work it into our workload and we will privately contact you with an invitation for a job.
And, yes, what makes this gig worthwhile is the written evaluation I deliver to help get you into the higher leagues, where you can start charging $50 and up for your articles. Getting you to where I cannot afford you and being as precise in requirements so you're not struggling in making your delivery comfortably and fast is my payment for not giving you a better cash reward up front. If you deliver on your side of the deal, I'll deliver on mine. ;-)
Cheers,
Art"
I hope that I didn't bore you all to death with our story. I hope that you have enjoyed it and can take something from it in your own life. If nothing else, just remember...
The universe contains all wisdom, power and knowledge, but to hear her song and learn her ways we must spend time perfecting our own silence.
