Homeless chemical engineer for three years, I feel like I’ve been stuck in the same Twilight Zone episode that won’t end.

Well it has been a little over three years. Ever since the tornadoes hit here in Cookeville around the first week of March, I've been homeless.

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I've lived in Miami almost all of my life. My family fled El Salvador when I was about two due to the civil war that started in the late 70's. I had a pretty good childhood for the most part. My father returned to El Salvador when I was about four or five, so I had my mom and my grandfather who raised me. Both of them instilled an interest in science and mathematics. My grandfather focused on the math part and my mom introduced me to the science part. Some examples would be math books (outside of school), dinosaurs, space, chemistry sets, LEGO to name a few. I still remember my first LEGO which was a rocket launcher with a spaceman. As a kid I loved Reading Rainbow and enjoyed going to places like the Miami Dade Main Library as well as the Seaquarium and the Planetarium.

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Fast forward to 2003 and I graduate with a B.S. in chemical engineering with a minor in biomedical engineering. I feel like I've lived two separate lives. Things were going fine until a couple of years after graduating from college. My mom developed severe pain in the abdominal area, especially when going to the bathroom. She was reluctant (at least initially) to go see her doctor. When she finally did, it was discovered that she had colon cancer. She fought like a warrior for roughly seven years. The last two years up to her death were extremely painful and I don't recall ever sleeping well those two years. I remember her waking me up to go early to King Jesus Ministries a couple of times throughout the week for early morning prayer especially during the advanced stages of the cancer. I remember it would be before sunrise, and just hearing her scream in the car as we would go to church will be something that will always haunt me.

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She fought all the way to the end; she kept on working till four months before her passing when she entered hospice care. I still remember the last time she was able to stand up, because it was probably the fourth or fifth time, I've seen her cry. She asked me to forgive her for always living in poverty. I was thrown aback by that statement and told her that I didn't feel that way. She always gave her best; I will always remember the sacrifices she made, and it is part of the reason I keep going.

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She passed on February 8th, 2014, at 6 a.m. in the morning. I remember the nurse waking me up and telling me that she just passed. I ran to the room yelling at my mom to please wake up, it wasn't until several minutes of shock and the nurse helping me getting out of that shock that I realized. I gave her one last hug telling her three promises that I was going to keep. I was going to try and continue and grow to be a better Christian (which has been a rollercoaster of a ride), I was going to exercise in either the chemical or biomedical engineering field, and lastly, I was going to give her grandkids.

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I would say about two or three months pass and as I was driving from Sunrise going home, all of a sudden, a see this grey circular "curtain" around my left eye. I ended up having retinal detachment on my left eye and a few months after that on my right followed by cataract surgeries due to the pressure from the retinal detachment procedures. That whole ordeal took over half a year between the incidents and fully recovering.

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I should have moved to Texas. After recovering, I estimate it was about two years since I was able to find any type of professional employment. I wanted to move to Texas after I graduated, but I stayed in Miami to take care of my mom, which I don't regret. The second time would have been around this time, but a friend of mine was able to connect me to his friends in Tullahoma who owned a restaurant. He told me "Look you haven't worked in two years; I know some folks that can help you get back on your feet. It is a restaurant; they will take care of lunch and dinner and you only have to pay for gas and water; no rent for up to six months while you get yourself back on your feet." I took that offer because it was a huge safety net moving to a state without any connections. I wonder if it would be considered going full circle since I did go to Vanderbilt University for a year in 99-00.

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I moved to Tullahoma towards the end of 2015 and to Cookeville towards the end of 2016. I met my ex-wife in Cookeville in 2017. Big mistake. We were dating for two years, and married two years; so, in total four years before we divorced. Everything went downhill after the marriage from lies that she could have kids, from being a legal immigrant, to finally cheating on me and kicking me out the week after the tornadoes hit on the first week of March 2020.

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I've been slowly crawling out of a 30k debt. I've already paid off 26k of it off. Work here after the pandemic started has been less than ideal with taking on assignments from temp agencies that has nothing to do with my degrees, and on top of it having arthritis doesn't help with most of the jobs offered are heavy-labored type of jobs. I've been through the UCHRA program (which lasted two years), the Rescue Mission, couch surfing from a couple of friends to my current home: a storage unit.

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You know, I've asked this question to hundreds of people. Do you know anyone who is an American citizen with a STEM degree who has gone through "half" of what I've gone through?

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Over a dozen accidents, four major eye surgeries, currently living in a storage unit and not due to self-harm: examples such as no smoking, no drugs, no alcohol, no cheating, no gambling. Only one time in my life did I want to take my own life. This was around Fall of 2020 and I was walking from work and saw a 16-wheeler coming down the road and said to God "You know what, this is a good time to end my story." I never felt that rush of cold darkness just surrounds you instantly looking into what seemed like an abyss without end. But for some reason I had an instant flashback of me holding my mom and remembering the three promises I told her.

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I've always loved looking at the constellations and planets. It always gave me a sense of peace. What has reignited my passion and hopefully work in my field are projects that NASA and SpaceX are doing. Samsung is opening a brand new 17-billion-dollar facility in Taylor, TX. You got stuff going on with Open AI, Chat GPT to name a few. In regard to science and engineering, it is definitely an exciting time to be alive: but I'm hoping I can contribute one way or another in the short amount of time I have left and not just looking from the sidelines.

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I'm planning on moving to Austin, TX by the end of this month or next month. This will be my third attempt, and I will make it. This time without any safety net, but I have to take the risk. High risk, high rewards, right? In any case I want to thank the people who will read this. If you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them. And yes, I didn't realize that my cake day was 8 years ago today. Go figure. Maybe this Twilight Zone episode will end, with the credits finally scrolling so I can finally enter a new chapter in my life in Texas. El Psy Congroo.