Once upon a time there was a girl who fell in love with a boy who lived high upon a mountain top. This girl had been a gypsy all her life, following her Wild Heart to many wondrous places. She
grew up by the beach & knew little of snowdrifts & snow days & snow plows, but over 13 years she learned much about these things & because the love she had for the boy was so great...no matter how much she moaned & groaned every winter, she stayed & craved a life out for herself & the ones she loved high upon that mountain.
Together this couple lived season after season in their small cabin on the hill, sometimes loving it & sometimes dreaming of a getaway. A fire broke out in their house one day many years ago when they were gone & by the time they got back, the interior was pretty well gone. This event truly broke their hearts...the loss, the damage, the fear & the dread. Over the course of the next two years, living in a trailer in their yard, through REAL blood, sweat & tears, their house was repaired board by board & brick by brick & became the little dream cottage they had always longed for.
A blessing came in the way of a Grandson. He came to this cottage in the mountains since he was born, bundled up in his bunting & soon playing out side in his snowsuit. He couldn't imagine his Munga & Grandpa living anywhere else, now this had become his sense of HOME too. Over the past few years, as the economy turned bad so quickly, many things changed for this boy & this girl. No matter how they tried they couldn't seem to stay afloat. They closed a shop, lost a truck & a trailer...buckled down to the lowest of minimums & still times got rougher. In an effort to hold on to what they held dear, they tried a home loan modification...a process that would take 18 months
During the 18 months they were told they qualified for the modification & to make half house payments until all the paperwork went through. And so, being naive & vulnerable, they did as they were told having faith in a system that would in the end, only let them down.
As they navigated through these muddied waters, memories were still being made in their little cottage in the mountains. The baby they loved, grew into a little boy. Holidays came & went. Springs turned into summers, which turned into falls & until once again the snow fell as they waited to find out their fate.
The couple is us...
Two months ago we were told our fate...
we didn't make enough money for the home loan modification
& now that we hadn't been paying the correct monthly payment
for all those months that they were reviewing us,
in order to keep this house, our home,
we needed to come up with $10,000, yesterday.
$10,000...is this a nightmare, somebody wake me up, please.
So ya mean to tell me that if B of A had been efficient & told us in 2 months that we didn't qualify, we would have just been working hard like everybody else to make our payments & we would have owed them like $1,000. It never dawned on either of us that by making these half payments we would have a balloon payment. They told us we were qualified, that's why we made those payments in the 1st place & anything owed was suppose to go on to the end of the loan...not so much!
We had a realtor come to the house for an appraisal, we are upside down by about $20,000...so selling it ain't gonna happen. We can walk away..but really OUCH!! We could take out a loan for the $10,000 & try our best to pay off the loan & make out house payments. We can dig a big hole in the sand & bury our heads in it & hope we don't wake up until 2013.
Sometimes, I'm a runner when it all gets too hard, sometimes fighting just takes too much of an emotional toll. Hubby wants to hit the road & travel for a year, just sell at big shows, work our side businesses, see if we might be able to get by. But at the end of the day, everybody needs a home. Everybody needs a place to hang their cowboy hat, a place to keep their stuff. So what to do Sweet Hearts, what to do?
We are both frozen, one day we want to stay, the next hour we say screw them...they can have it. The next morning I can't imagine not having a home. I'm too old for this now...if I were in my 20's & had the time to make it all up again, I'd be gone, just for the hell of it! I'm tired & scared & am just so sick of worrying about it all. I have handed it up to God & he hasn't gotten back to me yet. I know, so many in the same predicament...he must be exhausted!
So, here's where you come in. You have always been my trusted advisers, my rebel sistahs, my united front on the front lines. If you were me & in this moment & be really glad you're not...what would YOU do. Give me your knowledge, your heart, take my hand & lead me gently to a new way of thinking...maybe I've missed something along the way. The answer could be sitting right there in front of me, so close & yet I'm blinded.
Can I tell y'all, you mean everything to me...
Thank You Sweet Hearts,
my eyes & ears & mind are Wide Open!!!
XOXO
vintagesusie
