Resisting A Rest

Get It?
On a more serious note, I'd like to tell you all a little tale. It begins about six days before this "Act Of Resistance" assignment was to be turned in. Prior to that day of epiphany, I had nop idea what to do, or for that matter, how to execute this. More than anything, I actually wanted to have a genuine connection to this. In other words, I didn't want to just fulfill this assignment to gain personal attention hwile feeling little for the true cause. I wanted the seriousness of my issue to truly be recognized, not only by the public, but by myself. Well, as I said before I rambled on and on, I came to an eye opening experience (epiphany). As I was (as I do every week) flipping through the pages of the Shepherd Expresss, I haply stumbled upon an article
about the epidemic of homeless teenagers. The article ("Milwaukee Teens Fight for Survival", written by Lisa Kaiser) certainly made me aware of the issue. According to Kaiser, "an estimated
400 teens are looking for a safe place to stay on any given night.." One would think that there would be safety at a local homeless shelter, right? Wrong. There are only two shelters with places specifically for teens in the city (Pathfinders and Walker's Point). More disturbing is the
presence of sex for survival, or, essentially, voluntary prostitution. Many of these 400 teens have also escaped the turmoil of a conflict-ridden, abusive household. For me, it especially hits hard. In middle school, I had a friend, whose name I won't mention, who had frequently run
away from home. Her older brother was in the army, while her mother managed the household
alone, getting by on money from the government, since she was disabled and incapable of work. While I do believe that getting a job would have helped my friend ( when she reached 16 of course) she resented the idea strongly. She and I had different goals. I am an insecure, naive, innocent scaredy-cat, while she was overly ambitious to seek recognition and acceptance, especially from boys.....and she was "willing and able", which scared her mother to death. It got to the point where my friend was locked in without a key-but she still managed to escape her house. She was sick of it. Sick of her mother's strict and blunt way of protecting her. Sick of mourning her father's death, which happened in her early childhood. Sick of the chaos and danger of living in a neighborhood blanketed with crime. Over the years, she called me less and less. I tried calling her. No luck. It was as if she had simply fallen off a cliff, slowly enough for me to witness it, yet too soon for me to intervene. I seriously regret my lack of action, but my parents tell me to let it go-I stopped hearing from her when I was thirteen. Like a bad breakup, I blame myself for everything. I hate myself-I absolutely despise every atom in my body and drop of blood composing me, which is why it was difficult for me to fulfill this assignment and face the past and present. This past weekend I worked up the guts to go to Bayshore and lie down on a bench, as if sleeping. I noticed, when my eyes were barely open, that people did practically nothing except stare. Nobody asked me why I was lying there. They just stared or laughed to their friends. It made me wonder: is this a reflection of society's view on the issue of teenage homelessness? If nobody did a thing when I was sprawled out on a bench, does society turn the other cheek when 400 teens are spending their nights on the streets, sleeping on concrete matresses?