This is a personal story. It’s time to share my story and encourage others to share their stories. It’s time to connect and comfort each other.

It was a tough decision. For years I had watched friends and neighbors
lose their homes to foreclosure and felt their pain, anguish, guilt of
being poor money managers and failures. They had waited as I had for the economy to turn around — for the miracle that would turn the situation around and allow them to keep their homes.

No savior was in sight. No remedy was going to work. No one was there to help us. Now I faced the same situation– I was going to lose my house.

“Time to muster the internal strength of an elephant with the wisdom of a sage,”I said to myself as I picked up the phone to tell the mortgage service department there would be no payment coming this month.

Unexpectedly, I didn’t feel guilt, remorse or like a failure. I felt relief. It was finally about to end. The long years of struggling to pay the mortgage, of tolerating immature, dysfunctional male roommates, of cleaning up after these roommates, of coping with the dysfunctional, drug addicted neighbors was going to end. Wow!!

Then I remembered the house hunting expedition that lead to finding this house, the reasons I liked it, the hopes and dreams of a new life in this house, and the bitter reality of the expensive repairs and drain on my financial resources and the feeling of being a slave to roommates.

Then another feeling arose. It had been a huge learning curve, but it was also a time to sit back and reflect on what I had accomplished in the few years of home ownership. I had learned a lot about home construction, home repairs and being manipulated and cheated by home service companies.

I had shared some laughs and learned about music and computers from my roommates. I had learned to say,“no”, set my boundaries and stick to my decisions. I had learned to trust my intuition about people and potential problems that could arise from those personality types.

Then there was the renewed connection with my emotions. What a tidal wave overcame me when I recognized how peaceful I felt when the roommates were gone! What a sense of victory when I finally got the bad roommates out, cleaned and repaired their rooms and restored order and sanity where there had been only chaos and anger.

A new feeling arose. An intuitive urge to appreciate the time I could now totally focus on establishing my business, relocating and connecting with like minded people, exploring the performing arts like dance, music and art in my new home. Wow! It had been many years since I spent any time with the things I loved –dance, music, art, acting. Any many years since I had enjoyed drumming lessons, Godess rituals, improv comedy …

As my mind pondered on those wonderful, warm, fulfilling moments with other women, my heart started to sing, my energy perked up and my face smiled. I had lost key important elements of me in my process of being like the average American.

“No more,” I said. “The rest of my life will be devoted to my passions and living in my skills and talents and taking care of me. For here, I draw the line in the sand–never again will I try to be normal and like others. For here on out, I just need to be me.

To the lovely souls who also found themselves in the current economic chaos.
I salute you and may we all move forward on our paths to self fulfillment just a little easier because of our experiences.

Please leave me your comments. I would love to hear some of your experiences.

Kaiser Permanente, thanks.  I was listening to the radio the other day and heard the latest ad by Kaiser.  It shocked me. The ad talked about “putting play back in your life.”

The ad said that “you can play with cards, balls, jump rope, learn a song, go kayahing…”

It said that play lowers stress, raises the immune system, improves the quality of your life, increases the oxygen flow to your brain, changes your mood… Continue reading →