There are people like me who say that all the time. It has occurred to me that perhaps everyone doesn’t say that. There are people who seem to know how to structure their days, taking care of their needs, doing habitual things that keep body and soul in preservation mode.

Then there are others. People who jump at a ringing phone, eager to see if they have an answer for the caller. Is there a need I can meet, can I make your life easier? Do you need me to drop what I am doing to help you in some way?

Having come to realize that I have just passed through the last eight years of my single life by meeting the needs of a four legged friend, basically one bowl of dog food at a time, I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am one of those people. If we have a day where no one calls, we can’t figure out what to do with ourselves. So when we say ‘Call if you need me’….we absolutely mean it! And we will always answer the call.

Yesterday was the day I had to put my 14 yr old Lab, Jet, to sleep. It was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. Partly because there would be no one else to share the blame with me, it was up to me alone. He just looked at me with trusting eyes until his very last breath, knowing I would never do anything but my very best for him.

I realized that any other decision was more for me than for him. To keep him going would have required many more pills for the pain. There is no pill for the pain of losing him. Just silence.
To walk into my house after fourteen years and not have him meet meet me with total joy. To sleep, not being occasionally aware of his breathing, licking or sighing, as he slept on the floor beside me or rearranged his beautiful four- legged body for more comfort, those are the silences I am aware of now.

It was a relationship where I realized we were like the pair in “Pretty Woman”….I saved him from the shelter, and he saved me right back forever after.

In the quiet now I realize how often I talked with him, shared my concerns, told him I loved him, where I was going and when I would return. Even when I didn’t keep my word, he never held a grudge, always forgave me, greeted every new day as a true blessing and time to start fresh, as though there was never a bad thing that had ever happened in his life. I believe it is no coincidence that ‘dog’ is God spelled backwards. They really model a good and fruitful life, lived everyday the very best we can, no looking back.

I hope I remember all he taught me with his unconditional and constant love and faith in me. He was a wonderful partner.

I sometimes wonder how my ramblings have any relationship any more to real estate, but I am reminded how many people buy a home to have a fenced in yard for a beloved dog. One of their highest concerns and the first money they spend has to do with providing for one, or finally having room to adopt one. Animals are very much intermingled in our lives. Unfortunately, all the people losing their homes means many more wonderful pets are abandoned in the process of moving backward into apartments. I can only pray that more people will open their homes and hearts to these creatures caught in the crossfire.They certainly will forgive their owners, but how much better if they were rescued before they suffered unduly. We can all help a shelter in some way, as they face unimaginable stress right now.

I am hung up on sayings lately, perhaps some kind of comic relief, but I was thinking as I tossed and turned in the wee hours before dawn…..how dearly we hang on until we know it is time to leave. We will try all manner of fixes and excuses, new plans for old problems, just hoping against hope things will turn around and go back the way they were.

It is only the realization that we actually may go down with the ship that makes us realize we would rather take a chance on icy waters or sharks than to actually be gone and have no hope of another day. I am reading a Dave Ramsey book where he keeps repeating at the end of every chapter “Change is very hard and we change only when the pain of same is greater than the pain of change”. Every time I read it I thought he was overdoing it, but after three weeks of reading a chapter a day, that phrase makes a lot of sense to me.
Clearly I must be ready for the pain of change, if I am beginning to understand the weight of that message.

I also know that I am not willing to go down with the ship!

I believe many of us are in limbo right now, what I call waiting for the other shoe to drop. I am a firm believer in being proactive, but sometimes things are a bit hazy as to which way to go on that path toward yourself. There are always others sharing your path, persons ( in my case right now, a 14 yr old lab named Jet) who are affected by your choices. We are told to do what is right for us, but for a caretaker personality, that is often the most difficult choice to make, even if we can decide what it is.

I know God made us the way we are for a reason, and for those of us who are caretakers, it is usually not a problem to go with the flow. There are times, however, when we really do have to step aside from all the relationships that count on us, and make sure that we are being true to the person we are and staying on the path we are supposed to be on.

That’s when everything feels lined up and in harmony, even if it isn’t easy. We know that we know that we know, as it were. Something deep inside is in alignment. When the car is running right, it can take you where you need to go, even if you aren’t totally sure of the destination just yet. At least you are ready to start packing for the trip!

I am reminded lately of the way God connects me to His family. I want to say we are not blood relatives, but in the truest meaning of that phrase…we are! We are connected by the Blood of Christ.

This past week He has sent out a 911 to everyone in my Christian journey book. He let them know I was in crisis, and he put it on their hearts to call me. Now, some of these people I have not talked to in five years! He had them show up in a parking space next to me at Walmart, in a part of town neither of us even lived in!
They have tracked me down online, finding this blog or an old real estate number that is still my cell.Amazing, really. And all to remind me of how we met and how God used me in their lives at that time and place.

The Holy Spirit moves in a way so powerful as to nudge people who are tuned in to make a call that has everlasting consequences. It can take the form of an email of encouragement, a prayer, a thank you never before spoken, forgiveness never before granted, but there could be life-changing results on the other side of it. Is He Tweeting you today?

There, I have said it. I have tried carefully in these blogs over two years to ‘hint’ at my faith, so as not to offend anyone who might be reading, but it is what it is, and I have to admit it.

First, I believe God is good, always has our best interests at heart and will bring us through any circumstances that we ask Him too. Perhaps not to our perceived desired result, but to our best end.
He will never abandon us, and He is the protector of the unmarried, the widow, the fatherless. That is as true today as it ever was, and He has laid that on my heart as well and it never leaves me any more than it ever leaves Him. I believe He gave each of us different pieces of the human puzzle to care about, and our walk through this life just strengthens and confirms that part of His heart which He entrusted to us.

When I forget that I am in His plan, that He made me this way, that is when I am lost, and most in confusion and despair. And that is when He takes me aside, much as a husband in a good marriage takes his wife on vacation, to reflect, restore and renew the commitment we have to each other. Sometimes it seems like I cannot afford to get away because the crisis is looming, but that is exactly when He will choose to go.

It is during these times at a crossroads, where new decisions are eminent and unrelentingly demanding an answer, where God takes me on a Scrooge-like revisit of my life. It may start out as a scary, fearful time, but if I can be still and wait for Him, He always shows up at the appointed time. I never know exactly when that is, but He is never late, and He never stands me up! As we remember the moments and miracles together, my life falls back into place, and I am back on track: The track He has laid lovingly beneath me and ahead of me, reminding me that the destination is sure, and all the stops along the journey contain the joys we share together. How blessed am I, and how deeply loved.

This has been quite a year, of fighting to hold onto my house….actually several of them. I have worked hard to do everything possible to find buyers, get the loans modified, satisfy the banks in some way. After a year of waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak, I have decided to give up fighting.
Letting go of all power over the situation and leaving it in God’s hands has actually been the best choice I could make. I am beginning to feel a freedom I haven’t felt in thirty years. And I am looking around at mounds of “stuff” that is going to go away in one way or another. Whether I use technology to scan old pictures into a file that only takes up space on my hard drive, or whether I donate items to charity or sell things on Craigslist, I know that all I really need is more time and a little money to enjoy it. While I still love helping people find their dream home, I am encouraging them to look no bigger than a quarter of their income and to always have at least six months mortgage payments in a safe deposit box somewhere! To me, that is responsible home-ownership, as it was in our grandparents early days, and it will remain so over the rest of my and other baby boomers’ lifetimes. I want to see people succeed in having a full life, not just a place to call home. Safe, sound, secure and most of all, sustainable.

I think that my world view has just changed radically. No, I am not changing my political party. I am still an Independent waiting for someone on either side to use common sense and come up with solutions to problems facing middle America that seem incredibly obvious to all but the elite who think they know better than those living the lives they propose to make better without considering their input. But that’s another story. My perspective has changed because I have begun to see living smaller as a new road to freedom. The tiny American Dream house of 84 to 500 sq feet, as opposed to 2000 or more. A real home and place to hang your hat that will still afford you a chance to travel, visit friends and relatives, engage in any kind of social interactions you choose. The days of lying in bed worrying about how to pay the mortgage behind you, life can open up in new ways.
I am really going to look for others who are ready to invest in and promote energy-efficient, sustainable small housing that can be grouped in communities of like-minded people. I am beginning to see that this is being done around the country, but I am hoping to see it closer to everywhere that single baby boomers are wanting to retire. It will replace the mobile home as inexpensive living and actually give it a new, recycled green attitude! I have to figure out how to add a link here, (http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/sustainable-happiness/living-large-in-a-tiny-house) but a friend of mine in Buffalo emailed me the new home she is about to build. Now, I would love to have one slightly larger and with a working toilet and shower, but you will get the idea. Less is more: More Time, More Money….to do whatever else you want to do with the rest of your life! Think about it.

I may have written about this before, but I just want to share that this week I watched myself go from feeling lost and abandoned and homeless, to a feeling of freedom and choice and a whole new way of living my life. First, it is imperative to have safe people in your life who can help you see your life through your own eyes. For me, these people are my sons. They tell me the truth as they see it, but always lovingly and with my best interests at heart. After all the years of being truthful and respectful of who they are, this is now coming back to me in a way I could never have expected, but it is precious, indeed.
Secondly, you have to eliminate input from those who strike fear in your heart, or who deliver the truth but in such a hard cold way that it makes you feel like you have been run over by a truck. These may be well meaning people who also have your best at heart, but they don’t have a clue how to step into your life even for a moment to be able to share from a compassionate perspective. They mean well, but continually remind you that they have never been there and never will be….that makes them outsiders, so keep your coat on.
I have found that when I have options, I am able to make good choices for myself. One thing that gives you options is enough money to make several different choices. Without money, your options may be zero to none and you have to take whatever survival mode there is.
I am sharing this because I believe many of us who got into the real estate bubble did so because we thought it would increase our options down the road. In fact for many of us, the scale of diminishing options has been the only scale we have seen for the past year or so, as we tried to somehow get out of the way of the avalanche that seemed to be chasing us.
This week, I saw that I was not going to be able to outrun it and was seeing no way to safe ground. But there was a path, it just meant leaving everything behind and starting over but from an entirely different perspective. Realizing I couldn’t drag me and all my possessions to safety meant realizing that regardless of possessions, I wanted life. My life, no one else’s. A life based, as it always has been anyway, on the quality of my friendships, family and business relationships
I will go into this more in coming blogs as I work out the details, but suffice it to say here that there is a very heavy burden lifting off of my shoulders every step I take.

I so admire the people like Seth Godin, who blogs every day and it is almost always something good. There are times he even blogs twice a day! And I read and enjoy both.
Somehow, I can’t imagine coming up with enough interesting topics, but I guess if I start with that premise, I have already failed.

Today I am trying to get past the sinking feeling of perhaps being ‘had’ once again. I am the landlord for three properties, one my own and two of my son’s. Lately my gut feeling about the integrity of people has been off course. I used to find the best tenants, and even if they didn’t fit all the rules, they were trustworthy and paid their rent on time.

Lately, I have had to deal with people who are adept at taking advantage of someone with a trusting personality and willingness to give someone a chance. They have run with it until they have drained the life out of me. I hate to get jaded about these things, but I have the sinking feeling that my radar needs an overhaul. I may have to go back to the tried and true principles everyone else is following, knowing that even I would never qualify, and feeling sad that a few have now spoiled it for everyone.

Actually, after this thought had time to marinate, I realized that only three out of over twenty tenants in the past five or six years, have ever had that effect on me. I sincerely hope that we raise our children in future generations with more accountability than entitlements, because that seems to be where the problem starts, on any financial level. I have gone back to trusting my gut and I am not sorry!