My house was foreclosed!

But it's fine, I guess?

Londo Lodge the day I got the keys. As tough as it’s been, I have never regretted my decision to buy the house.

It’s been more than a year since I wrote about the fact that it seemed like I was nearing the end of the years-long financial struggle brought on by the pandemic and all the career twists it brought along with it. At the time, I was depleted from worry, tired from being in a constant state of panic, and just questioning what all this work and struggling was for. For a long time, essentially since I bought my house, there’s been a light at the end of the financial tunnel - being able to rent out my house to help cover some of the costs of owning it, renovating it, and making it into a beautiful home I feel proud to share with friends and strangers from around the world.

Mentally and physically, I am leaps and bounds better than I was last year. I hit a wall with panic and worry where I just couldn’t freak out anymore. It felt like the adrenaline had left my bloodstream and rather than feeling what was happening to me, I observed it from the outside, curious just like everyone else what would happen next. The past few years have definitely brought challenges for a lot of people in my life so I know I’m not alone in all this.

Sometimes when things start to go sour, there’s nothing you can do but watch them happen and wait for the hard part to be over. Which is what much of the last four years have felt like for me. I’ve closed myself off from socializing for the most part, mostly to avoid the “how are you?” question.

As I’ve juggled the expenses and logistics of two houses for a while now, each month thinking the next would be better. But I also had the sense that, if I made it through this experience still owning a home, it would be by the skin of my teeth, just barely squeaking through. After being pushed down for four years, I was under no illusion that making it out of this financial calamity was going to be easy.

So when I got a foreclosure notice in the mail a few months ago, I stared at it blankly and set it aside. I have developed a technique over the past few years to help cope with terrifying news. These days, when I find out about something potentially scary, I’ll let myself have a day or two to absorb it before I let myself try to solutionize. This helps me avoid spiraling and breaks up the emotional labor a bit.