(previous chapter)
When I got back to Ohio I learned that, after a month of nothing on my schedule, I missed some work while I was away and lost my job.
The Athens-area of Ohio is the poorest in the state, with the few job prospects. I applied to everywhere I could, I checked in frequently, I did everything that would normally make landing a job easy. There's just so many people fighting over so few jobs.
I kept myself occupied by writing. I began work on my first volume of poetry, Through Kaleidoscopes. I also started to learn more about putting myself out there as a writer by joining the forum website, www.writersbeat.com. This website gave me the ability to network with other starting and independent writers and learn how they participated in the literary industry. It also gave me a place to have my work critiqued and improved. Some of the poems that made it into Through Kaleidoscopes had been critiqued and altered after being posted to Writer's Beat.
The forums also got me on the editorial staff of The Oddville Press for Volume II, Issue II when I responded to an ad in the website's Classifieds section, giving me insight into and experience in the other side of the publishing door. I took that experience into my own project, The Adventurous Pen. Through Kaleidoscopes finally came out shortly after The Adventurous Pen's launch. I was also teaching chess to local kids at the library.
While all this was going on, I was still living at my mom's, with my stepfather, two little brothers, and an infestation of bed bugs. All of a sudden, bed bugs were everywhere in town, and our house was no exception. It was driving everyone crazy with stress as we all became alert to every little motion out of the corner of our eyes, or the feeling of something against our skin, only to lay awake at night as the bugs crawled all over, feasting in an unstoppable manner, while we wished only for a peaceful rest. Already lacking money, many funds were spent trying to eradicate the pests, unsuccessfully.
As spring began to poke its head, my mom was able to get me a job flipping burgers where she and my stepfather worked. Shortly after I began working, my mom and stepfather moved to escape the bugs. I stayed behind in the house as a squatter for another week or two, before moving into a friend's house and helping him pay rent for the next month.
I love festivals. I love the energy and the love at festivals. It rejuvenates me and gives me hope for humanity. I've been volunteering at the festivals at Wisteria Event Site since I was 16. Festivals are a big part of my life. That's why, when I had to decide on paying for new camping gear that I needed, or rent, I chose the camping gear. I bought a High Sierra 90L backpack, which is still my pack after everything it's gone through with me. One of my friends loaned me a tent, as mine was in no condition for long-term living like I was about to do anymore. I figured out how to sort through what I had left and put it in my pack. What I didn't need got tossed away and my pack became all my worldly possessions, my life on my back.
I moved into the woods.
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