This has been quite a year, of fighting to hold onto my house….actually several of them. I have worked hard to do everything possible to find buyers, get the loans modified, satisfy the banks in some way. After a year of waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak, I have decided to give up fighting.
Letting go of all power over the situation and leaving it in God’s hands has actually been the best choice I could make. I am beginning to feel a freedom I haven’t felt in thirty years. And I am looking around at mounds of “stuff” that is going to go away in one way or another. Whether I use technology to scan old pictures into a file that only takes up space on my hard drive, or whether I donate items to charity or sell things on Craigslist, I know that all I really need is more time and a little money to enjoy it. While I still love helping people find their dream home, I am encouraging them to look no bigger than a quarter of their income and to always have at least six months mortgage payments in a safe deposit box somewhere! To me, that is responsible home-ownership, as it was in our grandparents early days, and it will remain so over the rest of my and other baby boomers’ lifetimes. I want to see people succeed in having a full life, not just a place to call home. Safe, sound, secure and most of all, sustainable.

I think that my world view has just changed radically. No, I am not changing my political party. I am still an Independent waiting for someone on either side to use common sense and come up with solutions to problems facing middle America that seem incredibly obvious to all but the elite who think they know better than those living the lives they propose to make better without considering their input. But that’s another story. My perspective has changed because I have begun to see living smaller as a new road to freedom. The tiny American Dream house of 84 to 500 sq feet, as opposed to 2000 or more. A real home and place to hang your hat that will still afford you a chance to travel, visit friends and relatives, engage in any kind of social interactions you choose. The days of lying in bed worrying about how to pay the mortgage behind you, life can open up in new ways.
I am really going to look for others who are ready to invest in and promote energy-efficient, sustainable small housing that can be grouped in communities of like-minded people. I am beginning to see that this is being done around the country, but I am hoping to see it closer to everywhere that single baby boomers are wanting to retire. It will replace the mobile home as inexpensive living and actually give it a new, recycled green attitude! I have to figure out how to add a link here, (http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/sustainable-happiness/living-large-in-a-tiny-house) but a friend of mine in Buffalo emailed me the new home she is about to build. Now, I would love to have one slightly larger and with a working toilet and shower, but you will get the idea. Less is more: More Time, More Money….to do whatever else you want to do with the rest of your life! Think about it.

I may have written about this before, but I just want to share that this week I watched myself go from feeling lost and abandoned and homeless, to a feeling of freedom and choice and a whole new way of living my life. First, it is imperative to have safe people in your life who can help you see your life through your own eyes. For me, these people are my sons. They tell me the truth as they see it, but always lovingly and with my best interests at heart. After all the years of being truthful and respectful of who they are, this is now coming back to me in a way I could never have expected, but it is precious, indeed.
Secondly, you have to eliminate input from those who strike fear in your heart, or who deliver the truth but in such a hard cold way that it makes you feel like you have been run over by a truck. These may be well meaning people who also have your best at heart, but they don’t have a clue how to step into your life even for a moment to be able to share from a compassionate perspective. They mean well, but continually remind you that they have never been there and never will be….that makes them outsiders, so keep your coat on.
I have found that when I have options, I am able to make good choices for myself. One thing that gives you options is enough money to make several different choices. Without money, your options may be zero to none and you have to take whatever survival mode there is.
I am sharing this because I believe many of us who got into the real estate bubble did so because we thought it would increase our options down the road. In fact for many of us, the scale of diminishing options has been the only scale we have seen for the past year or so, as we tried to somehow get out of the way of the avalanche that seemed to be chasing us.
This week, I saw that I was not going to be able to outrun it and was seeing no way to safe ground. But there was a path, it just meant leaving everything behind and starting over but from an entirely different perspective. Realizing I couldn’t drag me and all my possessions to safety meant realizing that regardless of possessions, I wanted life. My life, no one else’s. A life based, as it always has been anyway, on the quality of my friendships, family and business relationships
I will go into this more in coming blogs as I work out the details, but suffice it to say here that there is a very heavy burden lifting off of my shoulders every step I take.