Watching my world collapse around me

I wish I had a happier thing to blog about, but alas, I don't. I can't give a whole lot of details here, but I guess I'll just have to be blunt. Not only will I be starting graduate school in just over a month, but I will have the added stress of finding a new place to stay (i.e. not live). Why? Well, by the end of the summer and maybe sooner I will no longer be able to live at the house I have called home since 1983 as we are losing the house. Yep. Not selling the house, losing it. I'm sure my dad wouldn't be too thrilled about me publicizing that fact, but it is a fact nonetheless. As far as I've been told the house is lost and so sometime in the next few months it will be foreclosed and we will have no place to live. Well, let me correct that: mom and I will have no place to live. Katie will be off to Virginia this summer and is presumably not coming back (especially after this), and my dad is moving on with yet another "life" by cutting his losses and running.

I've always dreaded the thought of selling this house even with all the major problems it has. I am a person that gets sentimentally attached to things almost as much as I do to people. We moved into this house in January 1983, when I was just 10 months old, so I don't remember the apartment we lived at in Kent. Technically, I have never legally moved out since my legal address never changed during the two years I was on my mission and the three years I was at BYU-Idaho. Home has always meant this house. It has never meant anything else, but now it is being ripped away. Selling it would be hard enough, but losing it? I don't know how I'm going to handle this on top of being in graduate school and all the other stress that will inevitably be in my life from everything. Just thinking about it is depressing me. Thinking about the way things are going to be after we lose the house is making it even worse. An absolute nightmare awaits me. Sure, I have places to stay, but not a place to live.

I know the typical person looks at me and says "why aren't you on you're own? You're 26!" Believe me, I say the same thing to myself all the time. Mom and Dad always told us that getting our education was the most important thing to do, so we didn't need to work unless we absolutely wanted to or had to. We were always told growing up that in college we could go to Kent State and live at home or we could go away for school and we'd have housing paid for (we get enough grant money to pay for tuition). Even if I did currently hold a job, it wouldn't be one that could support me living on my own since the hours I would get wouldn't let me work all that much due to my class schedule (for example, my classes this semester would have prevented me from working two days a week). Adding to that, by the fall I will begin student teaching and everyone who has been involved with it has said to not hold a job while student teaching because it just won't work. How can I make a living while I student teach? I can't...it's that simple. Second, it's not exactly like I live here and do nothing. I have been the main person who does almost all of the yardwork as well as a significant amount of housework. I earn my keep here! Well apparently that's not enough as my dad seems to think I "chose" to not get a job and I "chose" to go to grad school. While, yes, I did choose to do both of those things, I chose them because of how I was raised and the fact that I can't get on my own without going to grad school because my bachelors degree is not one I can get a teaching job with. Let's not forget I went on a mission for two years, which delayed school, and I transferred twice. Guess I wasn't quick enough.

So, just when I was thinking things couldn't get much worse around here, they most certainly did. By the fall, most of what I know will either be gone or in storage. It's beyond depressing to watch not only this but what seems like the complete disintegration of my family as everyone bolts somewhere else and I'm left here. Right when I need help the most, the rug is being pulled out and I'm supposed to suddenly find a magical source of income and a place to live. We also will no longer have a place where we can meet as an immediate family. Wherever we meet, it will be with the extended family: the grandparents and the aunts, uncles, and cousins. Christmas this year will be bizarre if it happens at all.

Oh, and this is not the direct result of the current foreclosure crisis going on around the country; this is the result of very poor financial planning and execution. That's all I'm going to say about that.