I allowed myself to go to a very dark place for nearly a month. Getting out of bed became a task. Then one day, something changed. I don’t know what it was exactly but I just began to think differently about myself and my capabilities and  I began to write again. First, it was just a stream of consciousness thing as I wrote whatever came to mind. That soon turned into essays. From essays, I started to get into political commentary and informed opinion pieces. I started dabbling in creative fiction again. I  started working out again, regulating my diet, and slowly began to come out of that depressive funk. By September of that year, I was celebrating my 29th birthday and back to my former self and moving to Chicago a month later.  Just when things started to come together for me, life took an unexpected turn in December of that year when I found myself homeless in the middle of winter in one of the worst neighborhoods in Chicago.  

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For the next six months, I put my laptop to work in that homeless shelter by using it to help other men with their resumes and cover letters.  Those who could not read their applications for employment, I would read it to them and fill it out.  I did not realize it then, but in retrospect, my desire to be better than my current circumstance pushed me to a work ethic I never experienced. It was also in this place that God allowed me to see my people - Black people - in a light I never had ever seen so intimately up close and personal. Seeing Black children being picked up every day, to go to school, only to be dropped back off at the shelter really began to have a profound impact on me.  When other residents were asleep, I was in the broom closet writing.  I published 19 blog entries while residing in the homeless shelter and even managed to go viral with the “Black History Month” tribute on Facebook.  I found employment at a homeless shelter working with pregnant and parenting women and teens.  At night I worked at a shelter, during the day I slept in one.  When it was all said and done, I launched the entire Generation FleX blog series and podcast, published nearly 20 blog posts, and garnered over 1.5 million video views while residing in a shelter.  By February, I had secured employment at a homeless shelter servicing LGBTQ youth, pregnant, and parenting youth. I was working in a homeless shelter at night, and sleeping in one during the day.