For multiple years, I was in and out of living in a car with my mom. From about the age of fourteen to when I was eighteen. During this era, instead of saying I was homeless (on the rare instance I shared my home status), I would say I was houseless. Because you are never without a home. It just so happened my home was a Dodge Calibur, and then later a Hyundai Sonata. There were times my mom and I had respite from the car. Whether we were blessed enough to sleep in someone's home, stayed in a hotel for a period of time, or even living some place temporarily.
How did I end up in that situation...? I won't go into full detail right now, though here is the summarized version. My mom and I moved in with her boyfriend (at the time) when the lease of our apartment was up. We found out later that he was a narcissist. (I'll talk about narcissists another time.) When we could no longer deal with his abuse, we left and moved into the car.
Why am I sharing this? It's a significant part of my life. The
multitude of experiences from this time period had a great effect on me. For better and for worse.
Helping shape me into who I am today. A lot of stories I plan to share
are from this era of my life. It would be a disservice and disingenuous
to leave that out of these stories.