I got an email from a friend of mine who wrote an essay about my homeless adventure for his English class... so I thought I'd bring back the blog for one day to add this. Thanks Big Al!
“Is a house really a home when your loved ones are gone?” This question asked by Diddy in a pop song brings up a very debatable subject; is a home really all that it is made up to be? Anna Quindlen attempts to show that a home is “everything” in her essay Homeless. She proposes that a home is the only source of “certainty, stability, predictability, [and] privacy.” However, a personal friend of mine has proven this incorrect.
Her name is Hilary Zak—a common engineering graduate from Purdue University with a job in Connecticut. However, she soon became uncommon when her job required her to travel to Russia three weeks out of the month. In this hectic lifestyle, she decided that it would be a money saver to let the lease on her apartment run out and live out of her car and hotel rooms. While receiving much ridicule from family and friends, she started a blog in attempt to prove that her life was just as normal.
In her blog, www.hzhomelessadventure.blogspot.com, Hilary’s main goal was to prove that her life was just as “certain” as one with a home. She successfully did this with many humorous postings showing how her life was still the same as when she lived out of an apartment. She proved that she still knew just as much about her day as she did with a home.
Furthermore, she also proved the point that nobody’s life is perfectly certain. She relates to how her being homeless and not knowing what she was going to eat for the night was no different than at her apartment. Even with having a roof to eat under, there was still nothing completely set in stone for dinner. She still had to make night-of decisions based upon her cravings. This proves that not having a home does not make one’s life any more certain at all.
Not only does Hilary also demonstrate how her “new life” is just as stable, predictable, and private as her “old life,” but she also claims that the homeless life is even better. In her posts, she claims that she has the same elements of having a home, and the added bonus of excitement and fun. In her defense to everybody thinking she is crazy, Hilary proves that in no other housing situation would it be possible to change on the shoulder of a freeway. By adding humor to this situation, everybody can agree that it would actually be a fun challenge to overcome.
As Hilary puts it, “If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” And it is in this risk that she has proven that a home does not mean “everything” to life.
