[I Was Naked]
When I Wrote ThisA Strange Interlude in my Life
2007-10-22
I got a phone call yesterday from someone who I've alway's considered to be the woman that should have been my mother. My Martha as I call her, I've sung her praises here before.
She doesn't call often, and when I see her name appear on my phone, I drop whomever I am speaking with to take her call. I don't say hello, its "Where are you going now?"
So yesterday when she rang, I was thankful for one, that the phone call I was on I wanted to end, and two well I just love Martha. Old school, southern, and just a presence in my life, always below the surface.
I gave my usual question, and she answered that she had just returned from Turkey a few weeks back. I had been on her mind and she wondered how I was doing. She was aware that I was going through this bankruptcy, which honestly is a lot of sit around and wait.
But bad news from my lawyer a week or so ago, was affecting me. But first a quick quiz? Hands up for all of you out there who pay your mortgage on the first of the month? Anyone? Ok a few of you who may have it auto deducted, but otherwise I'm betting most of you play it til your grace period.
I'm one of those. Sure my mortgage company is the largest in the nation, and have been making the news lately for all the layoffs and sub prime lending issues. They hold my first and my second. The second isn't a big deal, I have that deducted weekly. I attempted that with the first but way larger payment, and I couldn't accrue other money needed to pay other bills. I may rethink that with this new set of issues.
I protected my mortgage and lease payment when I filed Chapter 7. What that means is I didn't include them in my creditors that I wanted the debt to go away. I need my house, I put too much into it, not to have the ability to sell it and take the net proceeds. I'm still on my path to move to California but that is another blog for another time.
What my lawyer called to tell me, is that my mortgage company executed a stay of motion on their part of the bankruptcy and they started to foreclose on me. Give them x amount of dollars, and go back to court, and oh yeah they want another $650.00 for court fees. What do I want to do?
Options? Like I think I have any? Foreclosure is out, buy me some time. I can wipe out a small 401k I had contributed to, but honestly what the crap? They can foreclose and I'm not 3 months behind? Apparently yes.
So I go through another agonizing week of attempting to get paperwork signed to release my money. Because it was through work, the owner of my company had to sign the documents as he technically is the trustee. Perfect, like I needed my boss to know even more information. Then the games that ING plays. They zero'd out my account from earning any extra money, popped it into theirs to earn the interest. I had to call three times to find out where the ACH and why I don't have my money. I'm hoping it hits today. Lawyers will take their time getting back to you, however the same should not be said for giving them an answer.
So I'm relating this in the cliff notes version to Martha, but I wasn't dispassionate about it. This bothers me on alot of levels, some so deep that only I will admit it to myself and no one else, and certainly not recorded here for anyone to find anytime in the future.
The offsetting factor is I had an old roommate of mine from twenty years ago move in a couple of weeks ago. I didn't realize how much I missed him and our friendship. He was 19 when he first moved in with me and my other roommate Jacqui 20 years ago. I was like the middle child, I was five years older then him, and five years younger than Jacqui. It also was the 80's and Jacqui and her friends were heavy partiers. I turned into Public Service announcement 43 for reasons why people should not do coke. I would always be furious to come home to a party on a Friday night and the same people would still be there Monday morning. I learned quickly how to kick these older drug induced a-holes out of the house.
But TJ was different. He fit in, and rolled with the punches. There was a horrible water issue at the house, toxic as it were, and Jacqui bailed and moved to California, leaving TJ and I with a lease we couldn't break, and I writing to Harris Woffard, since there wasn't any safe drinking water laws in Pennsylvania. I will give credit where credit is due, because he was one politician who got them passed later on. However at the time we were young and told by Remax that the only way to move us out of the house, was to sign a hold harmless clause, preventing us from suing them and they would find us a new place to live.
Looking back as then we were 20 and 25 and had no legal or parental representation, so we took the deal for our health's sake if anything. I'd love to say after that everything was peachy, but hormones rage, and testosterone was high, and lines were crossed. I was older and could see the potential of this guy, and my heart was broken. I never really told him, I just moved out. I needed a place to go, and Martha always had a place for me.
So yesterday I mentioned that he was living with me again, twenty years later. I explained how I found him on MySpace back in the spring, the last I had seen him was 10 years ago when Jacqui was in town visiting. He thought it was a great idea to get the roommates back together again for a reunion. I had a cool little carriage house that I was living in at the time, on a beautiful estate. TJ and I had mended fences over the years, but I really had no idea what had transpired with Jacqui in all her time in California. I remembered that she had only been out there less than a year when that huge earthquake hit, and her house was basically in the epicenter. Things went downhill after that and she had ended up taking a leave of absence from work, then eventually quitting her job. By 1997, she wasn't the same person I used to live with, or maybe she always was, I was just too trusting.
Regardless of the incidents that happened that night 10 years ago, and who did what to one another, I felt betrayed and cut them both out of my life. It was only later and with an apology that Jacqui admitted she had lied and was jealous of what she thought I had and wanted it for herself and to take from me. I'm not the forgiving type when it comes to me losing friendships and purposeful destruction. Anyone can make a mistake, an error in judgment. Deliberately sabotaging someone's life doesn't garner any forgiveness on my part.
But time is a funny thing and casually searching MySpace one day, I looked for him, and found a profile that could have been his, but no picture. I tossed out an email, if this was so and so,and these circumstances applied, I was just saying hi. I really wasn't expecting an answer, but about a month later I got a response. He thought about me often as well, he was going through his 2nd divorce and he has a four year old son. He was living about 2 1/2 hours away, and we agreed to meet at some point in the future. Future meaning one week or so from that point on.
We decided to meet at a half way point from where his son lived and I lived. I walked into TGI Friday's and as he sat at the bar, time just seemed to roll away. Same smile, hair a little thinner, but the camaraderie was still viable. We spoke for hours and I decided at that time he needed to get out of the living situation he was in, since it was too close to 1987 all over again, and not a good atmosphere for his child. I told him about my place here, the bankruptcy, but I had the room. We drove back here so he could see for himself, and it was settled, and we are on the same time table as far as plans for the future go.
I tried explaining to Martha, that even with my plate being as full as it is, and trying to keep my head above water financially, I already know I have to sell my house come the spring, that in the midst of losing everything I've worked so hard for, I'm ok. I'm not great, I'm not writing like I should, but knowing someone is here who can fix things, is a relief. Having a four year old over every other weekend doesn't suck either. TJ thinks I'm a softie when it comes to kids, I can let you talk to two girls that will tell you different, but setting rules to follow isn't being mean. But sure, when a 4 year old asks for a lullaby, and can I rub his back and snuggle him to fall asleep, will get me every time. TJ thought I was being worked over, I said sometimes little guys just need a female when they are missing their mom. Turns out he was just upset that little guy doesn't ask dad for that, and he came to me. I told him it really just boiled down to I'm soft in the right places.
So I sit here, my financial house crashing down around me, but strangely at peace. I can't hurry up the process of a divorce needed in California, to get to the man I want to be with, its a waiting game, and probably the more difficult of a relationship to work on. But thoughts of moving there and being with him comfort me as well. I'm fortunate to know I have two good guys in my life right now, one who is helping me get through this present and I know he will move on as well as I will and I don't know when I will see him again, and the other that is the future, that gets me through the endless hours and gives me the gumption to get through this mess I'm in and turn a pipe dream into a reality, as daunting as it seems.
But these things keep me away from my keyboard, but its just where I am right now, just like the rest of you. As I told Surrogate the other day, I'm just going through a life right now. Good, bad or indifferent but strangely at peace. It is what it is.
surrogate (2007-10-24)
Sometimes, just going through the day is all you can do. It's nice to see you writing though. Good stuff, even if it's not all strawberry pie.
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