memoir
Far From Home
I graduated high school with honours, found a job and got into university— all while living on the street by sh a r e rya n My childhood was happy, quiet and blissfully normal. I grew up a classmate passed along some leftover shepherd’s pie in a Becel in Scarborough with my parents and older brother. My mom was container. But for the most part, my peers ignored me. I was the an administrator for the TDSB and later worked the floor in a homeless girl who smelled bad. factory. My dad took a job as a janitor while putting himself When I turned 18, I went to a shelter for young women. If I’d through business school. In the evenings, my brother and I would shown up earlier, the staff would have had to inform my parents. sit on his lap while he pored over his textbooks. At the shelter, the girls were four to a room, sleeping in tidy bunk Everything changed when I hit puberty. In Sri Lankan culture, beds. Some of my shelter-mates had drug dependencies; others when a girl starts menstruating, her family holds a ceremony were sex workers. One girl revealed that she was fleeing an to mark the occasion. The day of my party, I wore a beaded pink arranged marriage. The shelter provided for us as best they could, sari, and sat patiently while guests recited blessings and poured but their resources were stretched. On warmer nights, when I milk over my head—a ritual meant to bless me with fertility. My could fend for myself, I’d leave, opening space for someone else. parents started treating me differently after that day. They were School was my only path off the street. The teachers let me terrified that I’d get a boyfriend and have preuse the library computers after hours, and the marital sex. If I wasn’t at school, I had to be shelter gave me my own room so I could stay home—at all times. They barred me from attendup late to study. By the end of the school year, ing school trips or concerts. Sometimes teachers I’d completed all of my credits. Before graduwould phone home and try to change their ation, one of the shelter staff took me to Dress minds. To avoid further questioning, my parents for Success, an organization that provides free would pull me out and transfer me. By the time professional attire to women in need. There, I I was 17, I’d attended three high schools. zeroed in on a bright red suit. Trying it on, I One day, during the summer before Grade 12, felt like Hillary Clinton—powerful, confident. my parents snooped through my inbox and I looked at my reflection and started to laugh. I wore the same It was like seeing an old friend. I wore the suit found an email from a boy I’d met in a chat room. They freaked out. I tried to explain that he was outfit every day to an interview at McDonald’s and got the job. just a friend, but they wouldn’t listen. That day, For a year, I saved money, taking home as and washed I realized any decision I made for myself would much free food as I could. I probably ate huninfuriate them. I couldn’t live like that. So I ran dreds of Big Macs. When I’d saved enough, I my clothes in away, and, without my parents’ knowledge, I moved into community housing and got into gas station went to live with my aunt in Ottawa while I McMaster’s biochemistry program. There, I bathrooms finished school. But a month after I moved in, fell into a gruelling schedule: class by day, my dad called the house. When my aunt said then off to my McDonald’s night shift. During he was coming for me, I grabbed my backpack and ran. I didn’t university, I finally reconciled with my parents. We talked think to bring much of anything with me, not even a change of on the phone, tentatively at first. When I graduated from McMaster, they attended the ceremony. Soon after that, I met clothes. All I had were my textbooks. That first night on the street, I wandered for hours. Eventu- my future husband. He was endlessly patient while I worked ally, I dozed off on a bench. As I got used to my life as a homeless through my traumatic past. person, I took to scrounging for food in dumpsters. On good After studying science, I was fascinated by how storytelling days I’d score unfinished meals from a Chinese restaurant, or affects the brain’s neural activity, and I pursued a diploma in wolf down half-eaten bagels from the trash at Tim Hortons. I advertising at Seneca. Today, I work at an agency. In 2017, I had no other choice. I’d gone from one trap to another. organized a clothing drive at my office for Dress for Success Most nights, I slept on sidewalks downtown. When the cold Toronto and revealed my history to my co-workers for the first became unbearable, I’d break into parked cars using a hanger time. I needed them to understand that homeless teens aren’t and take refuge for the night. The key was to doze sitting upright— necessarily lazy or rebellious or dangerous. I hope that at least the last thing you want is to fall into a deep sleep and get caught one of the suits we donated ends up with another homeless in someone’s back seat. Sometimes I went to school, and sometimes teen. That she can wear it to an interview of her own and start I was too embarrassed. I wore the same outfit every day: a lime- a new life for herself. green Aeropostale sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. I never showered, and I washed my clothes in gas station sinks. Because they couldn’t Share Ryan is a customer relations manager at the advertising startdry out fully, they developed an overpowering musty odour. Once, up StackAdapt. Email submissions to memoir@torontolife.com 100 toronto life July 2018
