X Marks the Spot

I stepped into Susan's car and she immediately asked me to show her the top of my head. Confused but compliant I bowed my head in her direction.

"I was just looking to see if you had an X on the top of your head that said "Shit here" she said.

That feels like a pretty succinct summary of the past several months. Both the "shit here" directive as well as the "confused and compliant" response. 

I guess it started the first week of October when my employer thought a great way to reward me for the hours and hours of blood, sweat, and tears over the past year was to reduce my pay significantly. It's a long story but the final result was them reinstating my pay, albeit freezing it. The message my employer delivered loud and clear was that my  work and effort was trivial and worthless. The spectre of being so utterly devalued is something I have been unable to shake ever since. I've been showing up at work completely disengaged for the last few months while I've robotically performed one worthless task after another. 

Beginning of November, B3 and I, on a lark, with no expectations or intentions, attended an open house. We walked into a circa 1910 house and both of us... fell in love. I mean, we fell hard. It's difficult to explain what happened. It was as though both our futures merged, met, and were realized as we walked through this house. We both felt we had found home. Together. "What just happened?" we asked each other. It became all we could talk or think about. I guess that's how dreams are made. 

While I prefer all my ducks in a row at all times - the canards were not even assembled at this point. Quickly we rallied the troops. Real Estate agent? Check. Home inspection? Check. Home insurance? Check. Financing? Not so fast. Both having applied for mortgages previously, we felt we knew what to expect. However, this was where reason and common sense took leave and we were wholly unprepared for an alternate universe we never knew existed; where white is tomatoes and clouds are Christmas trees. Dehumanizing, disrespectful, dismissive behaviours are what you apparently must endure when you ask for a mortgage nowadays. We jumped through myriads of hoops, over and over. Then we were asked to jump through then again at different angles.  "It's standard!" was repeated time and time again. "Its the new rules." was the smug unapologetic excuse. I lost it on one mortgage broker. I mean I. Lost. It! "Just because it's standard doesn't make it right" I shouted. I've lodged a formal complaint over another broker and bank manager. We have found ourselves in a nightmare of try and try again - my head swimming and overflowing with everyone's advice and recommendations and experiences. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I truly don't. Apparently the price to pay for a house you love - for a future you envision - is to be brutalized with impunity. I feel bruised and battered. Discouraged. But we are refusing to give up. B3 is teaching me that. But even he is beginning to lose heart - and that kind of breaks mine. 

As we asked for our fourth extension on our offer, we took a trip to Victoria. Prior to the trip I took a few minutes to read a blog. I was seeking something soothing amidst the turmoil I was feeling. Known for her gentle and encouraging words, the thought for the day that jumped off the page was "today...listen everywhere for His love song over you..." I really needed to hear that so I set my eyes and ears to be open for a soft melody. Some affirmation that everything might be OK.

It was less a soft melody, but a discordant, raucous marching band that rang out "NOT TODAY!" It came with a $4000 price tag as the clutch on my car went. Tow trucks and rental trucks finally got us to Victoria. I arrived numb. Utterly numb. A new car? At Christmas? When I'm trying to buy a house? I couldn't help but wonder what I had done wrong that these hits just kept coming. That night in the hotel room is where I discovered, in the 13,000 steps we had walked that day, I had lost my diamond earring. I went to bed thoroughly discouraged and sick at heart. Sick to my stomach too. I popped out of bed to  run to the bathroom and throw up. Gall Bladder attack. 

Exhausted, physically and emotionally, is how Susan found me at the car rental agency to drive us both home a few days later. 

I feel like the past few months have been trying their damndest to tell me what a failure I am. And how futile my attempts are to live a good honest life. Like something I haven't done or didn't know I was supposed to do was now exacting punishment on me. The discouragement was threatening to turn into a full on pity party. 

And I hate that. Hate it.

So I stepped into the quiet over Christmas. (I know, you're asking yourself; is there such a thing as a quiet Christmas? Well yes. If you have no family near you. And you've left plans to the last minute. And you've declined a Christmas dinner from a friend. And you choose a late night candlelit service at a church where you don't know a soul.) I needed time for the pounding to stop thudding in my head. I needed to silent the cacophony and the gut twisting fear. Give a shoulder for the feeling-sorry-for-myself thoughts to cry on. I needed time to exhale some heavy sighs. Time to repair.

I am feeling emotionally and mentally concussed from the hits these last few months have leveled at me. But perhaps the problem has been exacerbated by me  trying to absorb them, hoping they will stop coming. Perhaps it's time to start fighting back. I have certainly felt helpless through all of it. Defiance has made but one appearance then retreated as quickly as it came. Maybe it's time that it suited up and got game ready. I prefer to live quietly and gently but perhaps I should fuel up that piss-and-vinegar sass I've been accused of having and let it rev for a while. People may not like me very much as 2018 hands off to 2019. But then - one of my very long, very hard, life lessons has taught me that I'm not here to make others happy at my expense. I deserve some respect. I deserve some happiness. I deserve some answers. And others have to be held accountable for their actions. I don't want anymore advice or recommendations. I don't want to make anymore decisions based on desperation. I don't want to be pushed or pressured because I may just have to push back. 

So today I walked into the dealership and had some stern  plain, honest words about their product and the lack of options they are providing. Most tried to dismiss me with the same "it's standard" drivel that those mortgage brokers tried to make me swallow. But I'm not settling for their status quo. 

Don't ask me to talk about it right now. I am scrubbing that X from the top of my head. I have my game face on. And defiance has suited up. 

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