Facing Foreclosure: A Reflection on Letting Go and Holding On

No one I know has been through a foreclosure process.

Do they really give you just two weeks to pack up several lifetimes of heirlooms and 20 years of memories into boxes, knowing you may never see them again? Maybe I’m being dramatic.

But maybe not.

At the end of this month, if I haven’t made my mortgage payment, the forbearance process I’ve been in for nearly three years will likely shift into foreclosure. I’m not entirely sure what that means yet. Maybe someone reading this does. I would actually like to know.

It’s not like I didn’t know what I was risking. Among other things, this has been something of a thought experiment. After spending most of my adult life paying others' living expenses in addition to my own, I needed to know what would happen if I stopped. Stopped working 40+ hours a week so that someone else could sleep and watch YouTube videos all day. Stopped carrying more than my share.

And now I know.

I love Morgan. I love my house. And I miss my Dad. Without my dad’s determination, I might not have bothered to buy a house at all. It’s the last piece of my life from before he was gone. That hits even harder now, knowing my mom is still in the hospital, slowly recovering from a traumatic brain injury. Most of the time, I don’t think she really understands what’s being said. She certainly can’t have a conversation about much, yet.

And in a way, it’s the perfect place for her to be. I told her, and myself, I wouldn’t ask her for any more financial help. She's bailed me out of too many things already, and now I can’t. I appreciate the universe for that and can even find a thread of humor in it. But I still want my mom back.

Letting go of the house would mean losing one of the few tangible connections I have left. I want to hold on to it.

In the short term, I’m working and selling what I can. Longer term, I’ll get a stable job. But whatever happens, I’m not going back to paying for someone else to live off work I do at a "job." And so I realize that is a thing that will likely need to be sorted soon.

I decided a long time ago that I wanted to be with Morgan. I still do. But I also decided I’m choosing myself, too. So, we’ll have to see how things go from here. Maybe this breaks us. Maybe we come out the other side stronger. I hope it’s the latter. Either way, I’ll know we faced it head-on.

If anyone happens to want to buy me a coffee, hopefully this link makes it easy. If not, that’s ok too. Just knowing you read this means a lot.

Thanks for being here.

ToLife! — Mary