I have to admit, being in  Short Sale Hell and the whole ‘losing my home’ process has sent me through the roller coaster stages that I am sure everyone in it has been going through. I started a real estate blog last year at the prompting of my oldest son, and he had me practicing offline. I enjoyed it, and contributed weekly or so, but somewhere around November, as I hit the wall with dealing with the lender and moving and trying to arrange a speedy Deed-in-lieu (which of course never happened), my life got complicated and emotional and I could barely focus on staying in my job….which is real estate on commission.

With houses stuck in short sale limbo, I was hit from both sides. My own house of cards was falling, as first I lost my home, then one at a time my three rental properties as renters moved and the rent no longer was there to cover the mortgage. These rental properties were purchased during the three previous boom years and I had counted on them being my retirement and 401K plan. Shattered dreams are part of this whole mess for everyone and I got lost for awhile, wishing there were a support group for people going through this.As a full time Realtor, I also had no income for four months, as everyone waited for the market to hit bottom and the new administration to fix things.

Last night I happened to go look at my blog, and noticed someone had commented on an entry from November about this nightmare I was just beginning to live. She said only “Thank you for writing this”. I went to bed and couldn’t get that out of my mind. How she found me under joanreynolds.com I will never know, even my family doesn’t know I have been practicing blogging there. The fact that she did find it got me thinking. Instead of writing in my diary every night about my journey, why not enter some of those journal snippets into the blog, get a couple more .com names and see who else is out there who needs a fellow traveler on this road. I am hoping to hear from lots of you about how you are feeling as you transition thru this life change. I will try to keep in touch more frequently, but if you see a bunch with the same dates, they weren’t all just written. I do occassionally remember things from a few months ago as they get cemented in my heart when a second or third  home I have worked very hard on gets added to the mix.

We can educate, encourage, support and lead each other through. I thought divorce had prepared me for most everything, but this is a new and different place than most of us have ever been, and we will find our way together. Stay tuned, and tell a friend if you know one who is also experiencing this; not feeling alone and knowing where to find other survivors is a really good thing.