Cowardly Lion (Part 1)

There's really nothing like getting kicked in the teeth for the third time in less than three years, to bring out the coward in you.

But I'm getting ahead of myself...

This was the year!  This was going to be the year when things finally, finally (!) started coming together for me again, after losing my job, house, and 99% of my belongings, in 2012.  I was living on land with a beautiful view, but it didn't belong to me, and I had my heart set on purchasing a few acres with a little house, putting in a garden, maybe even getting Bella (my fabulous yellow lab) a puppy to play with.  Of course there would be chickens!  Maybe even a goat.  Dare I dream of horses?  Too quick, slow down, one step at a time...

I connected with a realtor, who started looking for property that might match my imagination.  She connected me with a lender who could pre-qualify me.  Wheels were in motion! I could feel my confidence growing, my vision of tomorrow sharpening, my feelings of failure starting to fade.

And then. Two days after my birthday, I got a call from my landlady, saying that an unexpected issue with the property I was renting, required that I vacate in less 30 days.  She was very sorry, but there was nothing she could do.  I wasn't even all that upset.  After all, I was going to be buying property anyway, we'd just have to put a rush on it! I'd already gotten pre-pre-approval based on the information I'd provided, we just had to get everything formalized.  I met with the lender and gave her all the required paperwork for approval, and she assured me that she would have an answer for me the next morning.

The next morning came and went.  I sent an email asking if there was any word on my loan approval yet.  No reply.  Around 4pm (after being trapped in the torturous hell that is Les Schwab for 4 hours) I sent another email telling her that the silence was freaking me out.  She called me a few minutes later, and dropped the bomb that reduced me to tears, still stuck at Les Schwab, trying to get them to give me back my damn car so I could leave before I completely lost my shit.  She said that because of my 2012 job loss and foreclosure, the earliest I would qualify for a home loan would be October of 2016.

There are no rentals in the area that I can afford with my income.  And even if I DID find a place, I did not have enough money set aside to give first month's rent and deposit.  People offered me rooms in their home, and space in their relatives backyards or farms, which was sweet, but the thought of co-habitating after these years of domestic serenity made me want to stab myself in the face.

There was nothing I could do, nowhere to turn, no one with any advice other than settling for working twice as much just to hand all my earnings over to another landlord, and utility companies, and shit.  Absolute shit.  For the rest of my life. Just to give someone else the power to jerk the rug out from under me whenever they pleased, and make me start all over again.  Honestly, ceasing to exist seemed like the best solution, but God never answers that prayer.

Experience has shown that day eventually dawns, but I sure couldn't imagine how it would this time.

To be continued...