it’s a great letter, but it doesn’t go into a lot of things that the lender just doesn’t give a shit about and the major news organizations don’t cover. the things that at my lowest moments make me uncertain as to whether or not i should even try to keep my home.

my hardship letter doesn’t mention how i’ve tried over the years to maintain multiple housemates. how weird and frightening it can get having these virtually unknown people interact with your children on a daily basis. how their hardships become your hardships and fights over “who’s done the dishes lately!”  can become a major issue in their grand scheme of things. take for example my last housemate -well – it started off as odd little things. . . like she labeled all of her stuff – and then started labelling mine; she played opera music on weekdays until 1 in the morning yet complained about the boys’ Playstation games “tweaking her ears”; proceeded to live outside on my deck rather than in her room; meticulously cleaned & organized the shed, but refused to clean her hair out of the tub to prevent it from clogging; and then she began texting me to “talk” while we were both in the house . we had a 30 day trial agreement and, needless to say, when 30 days came i was sure it wasn’t going to work, so i asked her to leave. she dramatically cried, “what did i do wrong?”  then adds (more to herself than me and in a completely normal voice), “well i have been off my meds. . .”  yup. turns out she was bipolar. – chalk that up to one more very important question to put on the housemate questionnaire.

aside from being verifiably crazy that last one even COST me money with all of the accumulated fees my bank charged when she paid half the rent by paypal eleven days later than we agreed. ouch. that one really hurt. and it just got weirder and nastier as the final days before she moved out approached.  this lady was such a spectacular disaster as a house mate that i’ve grown weary – and now leery – from placing an ad on Craigslist to find another. but i’d do it if it made a difference in my lender considering it as income.

that letter glaringly glosses over how much money over the past two years that i’ve borrowed from those close to me to make ends meet: my amazing community of friends, out of the goodness of their hearts during that snow season, delved into their charity funds and their own thin pocketbooks to float me $500 here and gas money to get to work there. my brother, who in the midst of his divorce, loaned me $1000.  another month, one of my closest friends loaned me $1000 from his tax return even when he wasn’t sure whether his unemployment from this year would be extended. another dear friend who offered me a loan with terms and was patient enough to let the terms slide during the leanest of times. it’s been heartwarming to be shown how much love and support i have in my life – it’s also brought me to the marrow of what “pride” and “humility” mean.

yet, even when i thought i had learned those lessons i was side-swiped by the depth of my cultural conditioning to maintain this strong front of endurance. that letter doesn’t at all speak to the fact that i waited so long to engage in the process because i was too much in denial and felt such overwhelming humiliation and ineptitude that i neglected to act. i kick myself for this one. i’d already had to beg, borrow, and work trade my way through the winter – but once i couldn’t keep up and i had exhausted all of my resources – well i just felt incompetent. which, with my set of Latino influenced work ethic, not providing for your family is equivalent to failure. at 38 years old i felt like an amateur adult; i was deflated.  (even in the midst of this ego-crushing crisis i’m in – i find it rather amusing and ironic that a synonym for ‘amateur’ is ‘bush-league.’ capitalize on THAT George W.)

and yet, through it all, i stand back in wonder of the values i’m upholding. i have to chastise myself for my Bourgeois emphasis on this one material possession. i recognize that, as a Nation, we’ve heretofore grown into a place of comfortable complacency – our excesses HAD to catch up with us sometime and it was inevitable that the American Dream would turn out to be a farce. i have to chuckle at my ‘poor-me attitude’ – i realize i’m living in the top 1% -  and i’m damned grateful that at least i have a roof over my head.  moreover – i’m trying to keep a broader vantage point of my situation and rob brezny’s horoscope [http://freewillastrology.com] really gave me a panoramic jolt:

“The average middle class person alive today has more goodies than the kings and queens of times past. In fact, even during this time of economic retrenchment, most of us have a higher standard of living than 99 percent of all the humans who’ve ever     walked     the    planet. In pointing this out, I don’t mean to discount the suffering of those who’ve lost their jobs and homes. But I think it’s helpful to keep our collective deprivations in perspective. Similarly, I like to remember that no matter how much our personal trials may test us, they are more bearable than, say, the tribulations of the generation that lived through the Great Depression and World War II. Keep this in mind, Sagittarius. As you wander in the limbo between the end of one chapter of your life story and the beginning of the next chapter, it’ll really help to stay conscious of how blessed you are. Halloween costume suggestion: a saint tending to the needs of the dispossessed and underprivileged.”

so now the question remains: what is the next chapter?