Reversal of Fortune

It’s a Christmas miracle: We have a place to go!

Sweet are the uses of Craigslist. I’d put Will and me on there as a desperate measure, advertising us as a “clean, quiet older couple” (well, we are). By the grace of God, a nice lady needing to rent one of the rooms in her house saw the ad and responded within a couple of days. We met at a McDonald’s, liked each other right off the bat, and made an appointment to see the room on Saturday.

The room is big enough for us to fit some of our furniture in. The landlady also told us we can move our living room furniture in if we want; she has a storage unit and is willing to put some of her things in it. She wants us to feel at home, which is a big plus, and we have full run of the house including the kitchen and a nice big fenced yard where I can plant flowers come spring. She didn’t even require a deposit; thanks to contributions from people on GoFundMe, we had enough to pay whatever we needed to in order to secure our place. So I confidently wrote a check for January’s rent and we are good to go.

To say that this is an ENORMOUS relief would be the understatement of the year. I think my blood pressure has dropped by 20 points. We won’t be homeless. We won’t have to live in shelters or the car in the dead of winter. We won’t even be cramped into a tiny room in an apartment. Yes, we’ll feel cramped for awhile—anything other than this expansive house and acreage would seem closed-in—but we’ll deal with it, and happily too.

I have not told “Lisa” about Will’s or my health problems. I wouldn’t have given our current landlord a med list or a computer printout of all of our diagnoses, so I don’t see the need to disclose them to this one. I’m sure that at some point I’ll have noticeable symptoms and may have to explain myself, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

In the meantime, we’re moving on New Year’s weekend. It’s a good time to make a fresh start. Maybe it’s also time to re-read that forgiveness letter I wrote myself back in November, to remind me to stop blaming myself for everything that’s gone wrong. I wasn’t thinking of that the other night when I was feeling so terrible about it all and wrote that post in which I excoriated myself—again—for being ill. I’ve got to stop doing that; it solves nothing and makes me feel like crap in the bargain.

All that matters now is that we have a home. A warm place where we can hang our hats and do what we do best, which is being a husband and wife…..and maybe building a few models and writing blog posts. 🙂