The Story of Ken

Being in a hostel has been an incredible and humbling experience. You don't realize how much you've taken for granted until you're sharing it with 8 - 20 other people every day. For example, sleep, I certainly took for granted how easy it was to fall fast asleep in a room I was the only person staying in. Luckily, midnight's have been great (I can't believe I'm saying this) because most of the people in the room have either checked out or headed out for the day by the time I get home in the morning to sleep. My days off are another story, tonight for example, there's a full house and most of the boys have gone out for the night. This means I'll most assuredly have to sleep through them all getting home and likely being noisy, snoring, and other noises that will definitely screw with my sleep.

Bathroom time, I'm lucky to find an available bathroom to use for work everyday. I've had to get crafty and steal bathrooms from the other floors because there's just no way I can go to work without showering and freshening up. Cooking, laundry, me time, etc. all of these things are given up to stay somewhere the prices are cheap. But, this also comes with the opportunity to chat with people from all across the globe and hear their stories from their home countries. It's an amazing and awful experience all at the same time. This brings me to my story, the story of Ken.

Ken is a local man who stays at the hostel from time to time, when he's not here he's likely staying at another hostel because this one is fully booked and he waited just a touch too long to rebook. He's a lovely older gentleman who has always been extremely kind to me. Ken suffers from some kind of mental disability, one that I have no right to diagnose, but it's blaringly obvious that he struggles with speech and has tremors. All of this aside, he's a delight to converse with. he always asks me about how my job is going, if I've had luck finding a place, or just general conversation. I enjoy our conversations.

Recently, Ken suffered an injury at work that left him unable to work for a brief time. He remained unusually positive, happy to have a bed to sleep in and somewhere to relax at days end. His positivity has always helped to remind me that things could always be worse for me. That I could always be in a worse situation, and that's important for me sometimes because I've had moments where I've been incredibly down.

Tonight as I sat and ate my dinner, Ken came into the kitchen and greeted me as he often does. We started to chat just about general stuff and that's when he told me he had nowhere to stay tonight. I asked him about other hostels and he told me they were all booked up. He mentioned he was heading to the local homeless shelter after his laundry finished. As he whipped up a quick sandwich, I couldn't help but tear up. How could this man have no where to stay? This sickens me. So I asked him if he had been dealing with this his whole life and he said he's been bouncing between hostels for a while and this would be the first time he really had no options. 

As we continued to chat, I felt overwhelmed with sadness for Ken. How could this man have no options? How can a country have nowhere for someone who works and obviously has some kind of disability to go? As we continued to chat, I asked him if it made him nervous to have nowhere to go for the next two nights and he smiled and said he was back in this hostel come Sunday and as long as he had, "Somewhere to lay me head down." that's all he needed. 

As we finished up our meals and cigarettes, I told him I really hoped he was able to get into the shelter tonight and he smiled and told me that he'd figure things out. I walked away after telling him to take care and returned to my room. As I sat there, I couldn't help but feel incredibly sorry for Ken, but also feeling uplifted by him. He didn't complain, he wants nothing out of life but just to live and have somewhere to sleep. He remains incredibly positive despite life seemingly throwing him one curve ball after another, how can that be? There's been at least 5 days out of the last month that I've been here that I contemplated whether I could handle this. Whether I was capable of living like I was, nearly broke and unable to afford an apartment, living in a hostel with no luxuries that I was comfortable with, alone etc. and here is this man who might be on the streets tonight smiling and asking me how my job was...

Today, Ken reminded me that positivity is such a powerful tool. It can carry you out of the darkest times and it always helps when you think things can't get any worse because frankly, they can. I still have a roof over my head for now, I have money for food and smokes (which I need to quit yes I know :( ), a job, and relatively good health, so I need to just chill with the self pity.

There is a housing crisis here that is evident to me. There are going to be days that I can't afford to go tanning, days that I might not eat out like I'd like, days that I might feel like I can't do this any more, but I'll always think of today with Ken. How he smiled his way through things that I would otherwise crumble from. What an amazing guy he is, and if I decide that I can't do this anymore, one thing I will have learned is that that's ok because as long as I'm content and happy with my decisions and what I have achieved, nothing else matters. I will forever be grateful for everything I have. Thanks Ken.

HAPPY VEG