Of loss and hope.....

Life has been busy this school holidays filled with many wonderful things that have calmed my nerves of last term and brought me an inner peace.

Driving the last two days I found myself singing along with the radio and feeling happy. Free. Those being feelings which have been vacant from my life for far too long and were a welcome return. I have been working so hard this holidays to build up my resiliance and to change my viewpoint and the ways in which I am able to cope with the adversities that are thrown my way and for the most part I am succeeding in making positive changes. I have many many happy filled posts which I will write the next few days, they will not be in chronological time order of occurance but are important and stories of our beautiful new life which need to be written, shared and celebrated. But this post, unfortunately is not one of those beautiful, happy posts. This is a post about loss. One which I am hesitant to write if only due to the fear that giving it voice will source it power...however to not write it means that I am keeping the beast of it within and sucking the good from within me at the same time.

This week marks the 7 months mark of my separation from my husband of 12 years and partner of 16.This month was the month that the house we built, our second house together, and changed to meet our needs, on the block of land of our dreams...went on the market for sale.

It was something that we both agreed definitely needed doing and at times the thought of selling the house could not come soon enough. We both need to be able to move on as there is no way that there will be a reconcilliation. Living here has been incredibly hard, the memories that I walk past at every turn have served to stab me in the heart at times I really needed them not too. The maitenance of a house this size when I work part time and also have three children in my full time care has proven to be a constant struggle to find time to do and do well. The preparation for sale has been one that I have painfully done alone...packing up and sorting through things, dividing them between the two of us at times, taping up boxes that are just too hard to deal with. Cleaning and painting and preparing the house, desperate to make it look like a home that could make another family incredibly happy,  be another families dream and future and letting go of my own dreams and future in it at the same time.

It has been a hard process but the one carrot that has been dangling as a sign of hope the whole time, through reach hard and hurtful step is the reality that this sale can be the new start that my children and I deserve. That at the end there will be a reward.

Then the campaign leading to the Auction began and the advertising and open house inspections began and which each one that passed my hopes diminished and shrunk a little more. Noone was enquiring, noone was interested and now instead of worrying merely about how much it would sell for I began to worry about if it would sell at all. Could it get any worse?

An internet search on any real estate website will deliver over 750+ houses for sale in my area. No,that is not a typo but instead the perils that come with having a home in a new estate surrounded by new estates. Builders building houses they haven't got buyers for and then selling those houses for next to nothing in an attempt to clear their debts. It is a buyers market and I cannot see a reason at all why they would build when they have the pick of the crop of brand new already built houses at their disposal. Noone came to our house.

Until last Saturday. One group of people came. They liked the house...alot. So much that they came again last night. All very encouraging...but....the money they are willing to pay for our house is far far too low.

The phone call I had been waiting for came this afternoon from the agent dealing with the sale of our house. What price are you willing to sell at? What is your lowest now? Now..he asks...because we can all see that the price that we said when signing up to sell was unrealistic. Now...he asks....when we see that the interest is non existant and there is no competition between buyers for our house...now...

So we lowered our price a little....the buyer who loves our house will have to increase his price quite a bit to meet us though. The agent will start negotiations....

I said goodbye to my best friend, who was over visiting today, just after taking the agents phone call and I sat and worked out the figures of what we would potentially have each if we were to sell at our new lower price.

I will walk away with enough for the bond and one months rent on a house. That's all Folks.

Allow me if you will a moment to weep. To weep for another dream that is evaporating faster than the seed in which it was born from within my mind. The dream of owning my own home again...poof!.....gone. The dream of maybe an overseas holiday with the children....poof....gone! The tiny little dream of maybe some new furniture to replace the breaking and stained furniture of a life of which to think about hurts....poof....gone. The dream of having a nest egg of safety on which to sit and have for 'rainy days' .....poof.....gone.

Instead let me climatise to this new future, this new reality and dream. Allow me to be thankful for the fact that I will walk away without debt, something I certainly do not take for granted. But also allow me the moment to be sullen, and selfish and feel as though the whole situation is JUST NOT FAIR. Because on a selfish and negative plain it is simply not. It is not fair that after having a mortgage for 12 years that I will now be renting forever. It is not fair that the dreams I once had for my family and my children have been ripped apart. It is not fair that I will walk away from this hurt, this torture with nothing. It is not fair that forever more my children and I will struggle.

Now that you have indulged me that one moment. You've let me cry those tears, feel the sinking in my stomach and the ache in my heart...you've allowed me that moment in time to hate the world and to hate the situation that I am in. To mourn the loss not only of my home but also of all the dreams that it contained and also all the dreams I had envisioned would come from it's sale. Thankyou for giving me that moment.

This is now what I pledge you, me and especially my children. I know that these things are not the important things in life, our happy new life together is. I realise that all these new changes I face at first hurt, bring me tears and challenge all I know but that ultimately they are for the best. This last fortnight I have faced one that will ultimately change the life I know forever more. This holidays I have had to make the decision to return to full time work rather than the part time I have currently. This concept both terrifies me and exhilerates me. I am worried about how I will cope but ultimately know that I will be ok...it will just take time and getting used to. Because sometimes lifes journey takes you places you don't want to go, didn't envision yourself going but doesn't give you an exit or choice. You can bitch about it and live in regret of it until that regret eats away at every positive fibre within your being and takes the light out of your life or you can accept it and make the most of it. And that is what I am determined to do.

I am determined to acknowledge and give time to those things which hurt and give them voice if only to dispel them from my mind and my heart and then to leave them behind. Envision opening the car door on the problem, talking to it, acknowledging it and then driving away leaving it behind. That is what I am going to do.

Because I want to have many many days in the sun, with my beautiful children, feeling happy and free and loved and that can only come from positive thoughts and love.


It is time to accept the challenges we face from now on, embrace them and make them our own. To take charge and to fashion new dreams.....while putting to rest the loss of the dreams of ole!