The Plan

I signed the papers yesterday.

Officially I no longer own my house-the one I spent two and a half years (lovingly) picking out every detail. I forget sometimes as I go through my day…I picked out the gorgeous beveled glass window that fills my bathroom with rainbows all day. I installed the brushed nickel faucets. I personally sanded the 70 year old floors and stained them and stained them and stained them again until they took on the dark patina I was aiming for. I filled every single nail hole on the eighty miles of trim and crown molding.

Yet yesterday as I signed that last page, I was surprised. For all I felt was relief. Utter relief. Even more so as I balanced my finances (I use Microsoft Money. I like all the pretty graphs.) I watched as my debt dropped from a little over half a million dollars to just under $100K. Student loans baby- even in California, education is expensive. Somehow I don’t think I’ll be able erase those quite so easily.

I’m sad, don’t get me wrong. This wasn’t in the plan. On the day my husband left me with two pre-school aged children and no job, I sat down and wrote the plan. I had left the workforce at the birth of my second child. There I was in a duplex, enough money to last a month, no job, 2 kids under 3 and no education…and then no husband.

Over the years I haven’t deviated. The plan was simple. Go back to school, get my degree, work my ass off, get a great job, buy a house, and put the kids through college.

I did it, within two weeks I was enrolled at the local community college. I worked, went to school and raised the kids. Three years later I transferred to the University, worked my ass off and raised kids. I graduated, got a kickass (financially, heinous-emotionally) job, worked my ass off, bought my house, and raised my kids. Then I lost that kick-ass job, so I started my own business and went back to school again.

I’m kinda hard on myself. I’m always convinced no one else seems to struggle at life as hard as I do.

Yet here I am sitting in Starbucks writing this post, next to me are two women one can only describe as upper class. Designer purses, vacations in Hawaii, fancy shoes…you get the picture. They start talking. It turns out one is a consultant – in debt reduction- how to handle your life in this new economy. What to do now that they’ve lost their dual incomes and their credit cards with the thirty thousand dollar limits. What to do now that their credit has plunged from the low 800’s to the high 500’s. They have to be taught how to live on less.

It’s not a fun lesson to learn. For them or me.

Suddenly the plan has completely disintegrated. No kick ass corporate job. No house. Four more years of kid wrangling. No plan. But that’s ok.

The Plan