Leaving Home

I have been mentally preparing myself and the kids for the time that we will leave our home and move into something much smaller. I have come to terms with that for the most part. This is a large home to manage on my own, especially with the children, who need a lot of care and love - and also are prone to make messes the moment I clean something.

The irony is not lost on me that I have spent the last 2 years helping people stay in their homes, and I will lose mine.

I have spent the last 12 years helping hundreds of people improve their credit, and my credit is now tanked.

I have done all of this without cost to anyone or profit to me because it is something I believe in strongly. I used to think credit was an indication of character, and it sometimes is. But over the years I also found that many people were hit by forces they could not control, and I always tried to help those people.

Yesterday a man called to ask me to help him with his credit. I called him back and told him my grandmother was dying and I was not available. I know I am doing the right thing now, but I was also sad that I could not even refer him to someone else. I tried to explain that it was never part of my job, it was just something I did. Most mortgage brokers only care about profit.

Ironically, I also helped my husband improve his credit, which was very bad when I met him. But he seems to have no problem leaving me with this mess. He will always have his dad to bail him out and pay cash for anything. I don't have that option.

It is a hard thing to grapple with, partly because my ego is still attached to it. I took pride in my credit. I took pride in my home. And now both are gone.

But I do believe that better things will come. Credit is only a picture in time. It is never static and I can work to improve it. And I know I will be happier living somewhere else.

It's funny how losing things has shown me some of the lies I so eagerly believed.

I was so attached to my beautiful diamonds. It was so hard to take them off my finger. But now I rarely wear rings at all. I appreciate the simplicity of my fingers. I don't want another ring there. The rings now represent a false promise. My husband was never committed to me. The rings only represented that I was his. I was a possession. The rings were a reflection of him, not of me.

My children do not want to leave this home. It is all they have really known. I am sad for them, but I am trying to paint a happy picture filled with new possibilities and dreams.

I have been looking through many of the old pictures from my childhood. Some of the most comforting are of me in my grandparents home. My parents moved around after their divorce, but that home was a rock for me. I realized it was just the familiarity that meant so much to it - because it was their home and it was filled with so much love.

Heavy Heart

I have not had time to write these last few days.

My grandmother has been in the hospital since Monday night. I have been with her most of the days-time hours.

During that time, it seemed that my great-grandmother was also on her death-bed, but then it turned out today it was a misdiagnosis.

My heart has been heavy.

I left at 5 today, as one of my sisters was able to come down from Seattle to be with my grandmother. My dad and I had been with her most of the time until then. I did not want to leave her alone. She is almost 93.

I have been on the fence about what to do about my job for a while. I have known I did not want my current position and met with my Vice President last week. He was very generous with me and I have been weighing what he said since then.

However, this morning, during my grandmother's procedure, I realized my heart is just not there, and I did not want to stay.

I resigned today.

I have been there for nearly 6 years, so it was a hard decision.

Both of my grandmothers and my great-grandmother are now terminal.

My financial position is not great right now - I suppose that is all relative - but I just feel that I need this time with these women who have been so crucial to me in my own life.

Caregiving is not a respected "job" in our society. Much like motherhood, it is not valued, because it is not "profitable". But to me, there is no more important job in the world.

I have had some very intimate moments with my grandmother these last few days. Things that money truly could never buy or even recognize.

This is one area where the Muslim community rises so high above where we are as an American "Christian" society, that I could write a million pages on it and it still would not suffice.

I am very happy with our church. But the church needs to do better in this regard. We are such an individualistic society. We have completely lost our way.

I have been very strong all week. I have tried to be lighthearted and laugh with my grandmother. Tonight, I took a break and took my children to an Earth Day concert with African music. Perhaps that broke me. My children have missed me. My mother and their father have done a good job helping me this week. But the children are used to me. They were needy and did not behave their best. My daughter loved the music, but my son pouted. I did not have my usual patience.

I broke down and cried on the way home. It has been a long week. And I know there is more to come. Both my sisters live in Seattle, so the burden is mostly with my dad and me. I am glad to take it, but it is also exhausting.

I try to express to my children the importance of what I am doing, but I don't think they understand. I realized tonight at the hippie gathering that we were at that my children do not share all of my values. Perhaps I have done a poor job of expressing them, or perhaps there have been too many outside influences. But I really want them to understand that money is not the saviour of the world. Love is. Family is.

In the end, that is all there is. And if you don't know that, you will be lost - they will be lost.

Why aren't you making any money?

Today was my first "official" day back at work all day. Not that I have not been working. I have been. But I have also been taking care of two young children, a house and a husband that apparently doesn't give a fuck about any of us. I have always continued to work, as a mortgage broker, as I have for the last 12 years. I do not make the 6-figure salary I once made, but I have always contributed.

That said, I feel my most important contribution is raising my children. There is no value in that in my husband's family, but to me, that is the highest value.

Today was a difficult day to say the least. Not as difficult as yesterday, but difficult as hell. My daughter hates it when I leave her. She cries and holds on to my legs. I literally have to pick her up and pass her off to someone else so that I can walk out the door while she cries.

My new day will consist of getting up hours before what I would even like to think about and spending an hour-and-a-half driving both children to school before I start work. My husband will never understand what it takes to wake two young children up while it is dark out, get them cleaned up, dressed, fed, lunches packed and out the door on time to make 3 deadlines - 2 school start times, and one for me at work.

Never-the-less, my soon-to-be-ex-husband had the audacity to ask me, "Why aren't you making any money?"

Well, let me explain something.

As a mortgage broker, I get paid on commission. Only commission.

Once I get a call that someone wants a loan, I am lucky if that loan closes within 30-60 days. Then, I get paid on the loan, about half of what the loan fee is, within about a month.

I sent out a letter letting my clients and friends know that I am back to work full-time 2-3 weeks ago.

The reason I am back to work full-time instead of raising these kids like I should and would like to be doing is that my husband is a COMPLETE FUCK UP who quit working entirely for at least a year.

Was I working then?

Yes!

I was working, doing everything around this house, and taking care of our children. And taking care of children that have emotional problems because of their fucked-up alcoholic father is completely different than taking care of children who have 2 parents at home who are functional human beings and both contribute to the relationship.

So I asked my husband, WHY HAVEN'T YOU BEEN MAKING ANY MONEY? YOU HAVE BEEN BACK AT WORK FULL-TIME SINCE JANUARY? (which is how long it took him to get his act together after coming back from 90+ days at Betty Ford and the Caron Center in September for him to go back to work and actually get a paycheck.

And then he said, "I don't want to argue."

Yeah, I bet. Because you have no more excuses for your sorry ass.

Then the pipe burst in our bathroom while the kids were taking their evening bath, and like last time, my husband is NO WHERE to be found. So the hot water squirted into my face and all over the floor and onto the kids. I had to have my 6-year-old-son hold down the faucet so I could put some clothes on and go outside and turn off the water supply to the entire house.

So now we have no water.

And to say I am PISSED OFF tonight, would be an understatement. To say that I still consider my husband the least bit of a man would be like saying pigs fly through my living room at night, smoking heroin and laughing their asses off.

Changes

I had a dream about my in-laws last night. Just seeing them in a dream gets my heart rate up. We were all sitting down at a restaurant. My husband had not told me they were going to be there and I flipped out. It seemed very real to me. I have not seen my father-in-law with his wife there for 2 years now. I have no desire to see either of them again.

Today the kids and I are getting everything ready for school. My son has some homework to do and I have forms to fill out. I have been slowly going through the house and getting rid of junk. Today, I will go through both of the children's rooms with them.

We are trying to modify our mortgage through the new government program, but it doesn't seem to be much of a program. This process started in January, and no answer. Since I am a mortgage broker, I know this is not just my experience. Everyone I have referred to this program has still not been able to modify their mortgage. That is a pretty low success rate.

In any case, I am still hoping they can modify our mortgage and make it more affordable, someday soon. But if not, I am trying to get the house ready to sell.

It seems like I am on the cusp of a lot of different things. The kids are starting school, I am going back to work full-time, and on the verge of being divorced. I have a lot of anxiety about all of it. I just sleep in little segments, wake up and think some more. It will be nice when I get into the new routine and know how everything is going to come out. I worry my time with the children will be too little, especially with all these changes.

New Job?

Well, the answer to my question about leaving careers has been answered.

Last week, I had to give up half my commission to keep a loan going (their lock had expired). My clients didn’t even say thank you. I have been working on their loan since January.

Yesterday, a loan I have been working on for several months was declined at the very last minute. No good answer as to why. The market has just changed and they are really sticking on things that wouldn’t have mattered 6 months ago.

Today, another loan got declined after months of work. I have done 3 other loans for these people. Perfect credit, perfect income, perfect assets, they have equity….everything. The underwriter didn’t like the property.

Seems like I am just spinning my wheels. Since I am on commission income, if the loan doesn’t fund, I don’t get paid anything.

I have a job interview tomorrow. That is one good thing about my husband. He has been supportive there. When I told him about the job, he said I’d be great at it.

It’s at a magazine. I didn’t want to tell him what it was because it is a magazine for single parents. LOL, he guessed it though and we both started laughing hysterically.

He said something like, well, I guess that will be perfect for you now! And we both just kept laughing our heads off!