One very basic aspect is actual sleep, though. Or, more specifically, a lack of sleep -- sleep deprivation, which can become chronic, with accumulating effects.
When on the streets, many folks "turn in" pretty early . . . once it gets dark and they can get away with retiring to their various "spots" undetected (or at least relatively undisturbed). Besides, what else is there to do all evening long -- especially when it's cold, or also wet?
And, either way, one usually has to get up and going very early in the morn, so logging enough sleep before then is vital, since the following long day must be tackled and possibly including a tedious series of necessary routines . . . lugging stuff around, more walking than most people do, trundling aroudn town and among meals or other necessary resources, etc.
It all can be a grueling, exhausting grind. Enough so, that at the end of the day, there's enough raw exhaustion to grant the sorely needed and prized . . . simple sleep. I found that, when "out there" literally on the streets, with random people passing by (sometimes even actually stepping right over one) and all the other action and hubbub, the ONLY reason I could be in such circumstances and even go to or stay asleep at all was due to that deep fatigue.
My own routine wasn't to retire early. Instead, I'd spend evenings usually in wifi cafe's, to take advantage of prime time to try to make more happen, sell stuff online, probe for opportunities/resources, stay in touch with some, try to get something worthwhile done or just take shots at whatever. Plus, wanting/needing a range and variety of "social" or "community" contacts and interaction with a variety of other kinds of people. So I'd be "out" until midnight or so. THEN do the laborious trailered bicycle commute to . . . wherever I was "staying" at the time, to do the drill of unpacking the necessary things, securing everything else as well as could be, possibly waterproofing, etc. Only to reverse all this right away, first thing in the early morn. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Etc.
These days, I've been enjoying the incredible boon of being among the "vehicled", if still "homeless". I''m still keeping pretty much the same evening/night hours "out" though, despite having this precious place to go most any time I'd like -- a private, secured place available for me to hole up in, even with relative "luxuries" -- light. heat, space (however modest), and more books and other items than could previously be carried/kept on hand. Even foods, drinks and treats. Heck, I can even watch movies on my laptop or iPod (as long as the batteries hold out).
AND I can also "sleep in" too, not absolutely having to get up and going right away very early to avoid expensive citations, or harassing rousts, or just because of a day's beginning hustle and bustle surrounding.
Depending upon where one is parked, certain external factors do apply. In timed zones, often beginning at 8am - 9am a two hour limit begins, requiring that the vehicle be moved. This parking leap-frogging can continue to go on all day, too, if staying in these areas, forcing the day into two-hour segments between these relocations to further parking spots hopping from block to block.
But now with this relative comfort, the lack of the same extreme hardship has been having another, unexpected effect too -- insomnia. I've been having trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep. I've apparently become accustomed to relying upon a real exhausted fatigue as a sedative. Now, unless I'm pretty severely spent, I'm having trouble staving away all the stress, worries, concerns, and other thoughts and feelings that I'd so long had to only just keep at bay as I concentrated on only immediate survival and the ongoing perpetual NOW of just the very next things . . . all else aside.
My own mind tortures me. A couple of years' backlog of unresolved and mounting issues invades and clamors for my attention, in that humble womb of quiet, safe solitude. And it all plagues me while preventing sleep, even when pretty tired and craving my usual somatic sanctuary. I'm also a bit claustrophobic, and the upper cab-over bunk is a pretty tight fit which makes little difference when snoozing, but can close in and confine when awake. Although the rest of the space is a relative private, exclusive manor compared to being outdoors with only the "privacy" of a bivvy bag pulled over one's head, on any other standard it's fairly cramped too, and can rouse "cabin fever" in me.
So I've been having more trouble with all this in recent times than I'd realized I was in for. And then, once finally tuckered out enough to quell all the fitful, distracted latening nights and I finally do fall out, I'm either awakening too early when roused by nature's calls or ending up sleeping too late into morns. Or mid-days, if and when I haven't been able to sleep until, say, 4am - 6am or so.
This is now a new problem to try to handle. Among all the others. And so many as-yet largely unsolved problems. Which is part of what keeps me up so much. And so it all goes . . .
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