Journey

I imagined what that journey would be like, well essentially I imagined what any journey would be like. Since the age of 14, I’ve never really known what it was like to adventure anywhere besides the various musky side benches or the crowded, swarming shelters. I know it wasn’t where I belonged but I couldn’t shake that feeling that I really didn’t belong anywhere, that the putrid smelling alleys or the stone hard mattresses in the shelters was going to be the extent of my happiness. I may be over exaggerating a little bit, don’t get me wrong it was bad being homeless but there was always Anne-Sue but I just call her Anne. She was 30, and had more stories and more life experience then someone who lived a jam-packed life, we sat and she reminisced about her travels. She had an account to cover pretty much every life occurrence you could possibly endvour. I never really knew if they were true but they gave me some hope, they made me feel like I could one day to see the extraordinary things that the world and life has to offer. Anne didn’t mind being homeless as she believed we were all put on this earth to fulfil our lives and in her mind she already had. My parents weren’t the step ford parents that took their children to soccer games on the Saturdays or overloaded there spoilt children with presents all bigger then the next for their birthdays. But I acknowledge that they did try, Anne had taught me to stop resenting them for how my life has turned out and to use the anger I had and to stear it in a different direction, to try and to turn my life around, stop blaming people and take action! She would lecture me and we would bicker until I came to the realisation that you control your own life, no one else, I truly did love her and I owe her everything. Ever since I was 5 my mum encouraged me to be a singer as she would always look at me and say ‘Lisa that voice is going to change lives some day’ or ‘that voice will get you anything you want’ ‘that voice is like heaven to my ears’. I would sing to Anne every night before we would gradually fall asleep, even sometimes I would see a tricker of a little tear in the corner of her eye but she would never admit it, crying to Anne was like letting the sadness get the better of you, she always told me that good would always triumph the bad. She made me tough, as she was the most independent strongest women I ever knew. When I was 13 my mother died of leukaemia, it was a fast and out of know where, one month she was there the next she was gone. My father up and left after that he couldn’t handle a teenage ‘reckless’ daughter on his own he would say to me every night he didn’t deserve this, that it was my fault. I always believed it was, it took me years to come to the conclusion that it was just the anger in him talking, and it was just extremely stupid of me to believe him. Instead of sulking I started singing. Instead of sleeping on the streets I started sleeping in comfy pillow filled beds. From no one knowing your name or not caring at the least about your existence, everyone knew who Lisa Hathaway was, singer working her way up from the slumps. Building a career took time, talent and a lot of strength which I gained from the streets, which I gained from Anne. My mother was right, people did fall in love with my voice just like I fell in love with singing it to them. The road of life twist and turns, and know to directions are the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination. I will always remember my years when I didn’t have a home, but it is a thing of the past and I got taught to not dwell in the past as it will do you know good, hold your head up and keep fighting as your journey of life doesn’t end until your last breath. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.