written but not proofread…..that’ would be a big reason I don’t publish as much as I should….I reread things and think they aren’t good enough…whey would anyone care?….Oh I shouldn’t say that!  ect….ect…  So here you go, what was on my mind….  and another little painting I did on my phone.  

We moved a year ago.

We haven’t sold our house.

Turns out we can’t.  Sounds kind of odd huh?  Technically we could, but it would have to be for much less than we owe on it, and much less than we had offers on it.  We would have to do a “Short Sell”, and ruin our credit.

How does that happen?  Foreclosures in our neighborhood.  Due to the foreclosures our house is appraising for much less than it should.  There are other houses in the neighborhood in the same predicament we are in.  It’s really hard when we had 2 good offers and they couldn’t get loans because of the appraisal.  I do not understand why the amount the foreclosed houses sold for has anything to do with the amount our house should sell for, but the appraisers have this magic formula they go by.  News Flash!  That magic formula, does not work!  We had our hopes up a little bit because one of the other families trying to sell challenged the appraisal and everyone thought they would beat it.  That the numbers would change.  They lost, and everything stayed the same.  That was a sad day.

What do we now?  Rent it.

For a little over a year now we have been paying rent and a mortgage and all the expenses that come with both….like utilities, insurance, and for the house….HOA dues, lawn maintenance…..ect.    I don’t talk a lot about money on here, we have been lucky, Hubby has had good jobs so we haven’t had to worry about paying for the necessities, medical insurance, and my bills…ect.  Right now, things are tight.  We don’t have debtors knocking at our door, but I’m not comfortable with the situation.  It is making me feel even more guilty that I can’t work….that I can’t help.  Hubby had to take a big pay cut for this job.  He didn’t want take a job that didn’t give him very flexible hours so he could come home if I needed or that prohibited him from being  able to take me to doctor appointments.  That was hard.  Another thing, I felt very guilty about.  He was out of work for 16 months, it was hard to find a job with these requirements.  (Well I have to admit, it was hard to find a job at the time anyway.)

This whole situation has been tearing me up inside.  Because of the Avascular Necrosis, and the increased vertigo and migraines, I wasn’t able to travel back and forth to help get the house ready to sell, and Hubby didn’t feel like he could leave me alone to go take care of it, and we sure didn’t have the funds to have professionals come in there and take care of everything. So it took many months to get the house on the market to begin with.  (More Guilt – a pretty useless emotion in situations like this…but I just can’t help it.)

So, I’m stuck in this city, alone.  There is no one for me to call on for help if Hubby goes out of town.  My cousin and his family live fairly close, but it would take them at least 45 minutes to get to my place.  If I fell, or started having a scary vertigo attack…45 minutes or more, could feel like forever.  However, I wouldn’t want to call an ambulance unless it was a true emergency..and yes I would call them for that.  (yes I learned my lesson after I broke my foot)  Often need some help, but not a hospital.  Plus, who would come and get me and take me home?  Hubby would be 3 hours away, and he sure doesn’t need to drive under that much pressure.  Plus, my darling husband would be so worried the entire time he was gone, he wouldn’t get much done, so why go in the first place.  (G-U-I-L-T….don’t fuss at me…I know, I know, gotta get over it, I was better about it, I’ll work on it.)

We had to depend on the kindness of others to help us.  Our amazing neighbor helped us so much.  She ran a yard sale, and got so much stuff out of the house.  Another friend of mine, came and got a huge amount of stuff out of the house.  Yes we downsized so much, many people helped by getting things, and a dear friend came over many weekends and helped sort, and clear things out.  Moving from our house, to a little bitty duplex, was very hard….just physically getting rid of things.  I have become a firm believer that I don’t need much.  Especially since I’m sick.  I got rid of a lot of stuff, and most I don’t miss at all.  I gave away most of my art supplies.  now I miss it.  I do think it will get better when we get settled some place, but right now, we live in a place that is just so…..not a home.  I miss seeing things where they are supposed to be.  I hate seeing things that look out of place because they just don’t have a place.  It looks odd.  Our couches wouldn’t fit in this small place, so we had to get something else, it doesn’t look like us.  Then I had to get a recliner when I had my surgery we were forced into something that really doesn’t match anything because of the short notice, and it’s hard to find one that doesn’t rock.  I really tried to make this place feel like us.  I have paintings and photos all over, we really tried to make it comfortable, but it isn’t.

The duplex is now….falling apart….No…really!  The floor started buckling up, and last week the vent in the floor kind of exploded.  When it started we thought it was water damage.  It started last year, and we told the landlord.  The caulked the window, even though there was no sign of water coming into the window.  It seemed to stop during the winter.  When it got warm it started again, now the floor is bulged out about 6 feet into the living room…in waves.  It’s dangerous.  The landlord is finally paying attention (after I mentioned it was dangerous, and I tripped).  They finally had a professional come out and look at it yesterday, and it looks like it’s termites.  It will take at least a week to fix it and they will be tearing up the whole living room floor and the hall that goes to every other room in the place.  We could not be here, and neither could most of our furniture.  So we kinda need to move.  Before they found out it was termites, Stuart asked if we could wait until the house rents, and the landlord said yes.  Now, I’m not sure he will say that, termites causing damage may trump us needed to wait on money.

What do we do if we have to leave early?  Take money out of retirement, of course.  Hopefully our house will rent fast.  If not, that will not be good.  When we move we will have to pay a new pet deposit, higher rent, a deposit (who knows how different it will be from here)….and someone to help us move….and who knows what else we have to add to this.   Hubby is never going to be able to retire.

When I’ve been back to the house, it has hurt so much.  The last time I lived in a house that was owned was when I was in the 7th grade.  My parents moved that year and we started renting then.  My father still rents the house he lives in.  I always felt odd that we didn’t own the house we lived in.  I always thought, if they changed their mind, we could possibly not have a place to live.  When I was almost out of high school, the heating system went out in one place we lived in for a long time, and the owners decided not to fix it, we had to move.  My father still lives in that house, I never felt like it was home.

After I moved out, I rented.  I never felt like I had a home.  Funny thing though, I’ve lived in two places that I rented that I felt comfortable in, one was a condo that I shared with a girl who is still one of my very best friends.  There was one house Stuart and I rented that I felt could be our home.  Then something happened to the house and again the landlord didn’t want to fix it, and we had to move.  My heart broke.

Finally we bought a house.  It took me a while, but I felt like it was our home.  I had a little herb and wild flower garden in the front, I had a big kitchen I could go crazy in, I had a room that was all my own that I could create art in…we had a place that we could call home.  That meant so much to me.  As I got sick it was harder to go up and down the stairs, but I managed.  We realized that the house was just too big since I couldn’t maneuver the stairs any more, and I couldn’t really create art like I used to, and we weren’t going to add any children to that big house.  We thought about selling and buying a new house, but we were going to wait a bit until the market came back up a bit.  Then….Hubby lost his job and things had to change, fast.

I went to our house recently. Now, my little garden is gone.  It is a patch of dirt, grass, and weeds.  The house looks so odd being empty.  It needed to be cleaned, painted…and some various things done…..I cried, just a little, I knew it would bother Stuart.  He doesn’t understand how I feel.  I don’t understand how I’m feeling.

Home is not a House.

Home is where my love is.

Home is where Stuart, Max, and Kiki are.

as long as we have our necessities taken care of, what else should I be worried about.

I feel lost.

and I feel GUILTY   is it completely stupid…maybe.

But let’s face the facts, people with chronic illnesses often feel guilty about …. a lot of things that they have no control over.

And I’ll talk more about that later.   I’m just way too tired to talk about it now.

At a different time, This post would not have been posted because I would have gotten here and gotten overwhelmed and decided I didn’t want to show everyone how I was feeling and not end a post on a more positive note…..but today…..I’m just writing….

But know….I don’t let this guilt consume me.

One of the BIGGEST things I believe in is COMPASSION.  I bet almost everyone, if not everyone, reading this post also believes in compassion.  (a lot of shaking heads out there…yep, you are agreeing huh?)  Then why is it so hard for us to be compassionate toward ourselves?   Yes, I feel guilty over things I have no control over.  Then I sit my butt down and have a little cry….yep I get all over whelmed with all of this and just cry….then I talk to me, like I would talk to you….and I feel that wonderful feeling toward me….compassion.

And the guilt isn’t so big any more.

Sure sometimes it seems to build back up and crawls back up on my back, but I’m a pretty compassionate woman.  I can reach out and feel compassion for others and me.

There are other ways to deal with the guilt, but I think that compassion is the best place to start.

Heck…I think compassion is just a pretty good place to start…….period.