My feelings about writing this post are as ever changing as the dusky blue and gray skies that buffet the Atlantic nearest my beloved coast of Maine. They change as rapidly and with as much ferociousness as the clouds as they move overhead.
At the end of the day, the skies will do as they please and I will write this post because as much as the dark clouds will unburden themselves of their rain, I will give wings to the words that have been roiling around inside my heart and soul since we last came back from Maine at the end of July.
We were supposed to head straight to Maine after a business visit to Boston. We drove across the Piscataqua Bridge and into Maine just a few hours after I'd done what I had to do in Boston. The moment I saw the "Welcome to Maine" sign on I-95 the tenseness in my chest relaxed, my heart slowed down, and I took a deep breath and actually felt something akin to peace, envelope me. Gareth and I looked at one another and smiled. Gaby looked out the window and asked if we were "home?" I told her we were back in Maine again. I've been trying to reinforce that New York is home for now but she has a mind of her own. Gaby practically bounded our of her seat as she exclaimed, "No! We're home! We're home! We're home! We are in Maine! HOME HOME HOME!"
We took the exit that signaled York Beach, off of I-95 and made our way towards Long Sands beach. Come hell or high water, I was getting into the Atlantic ocean and letting that cool salt-water wash over my feet and was going to inhale deeply, the salty sweet perfume of the Atlantic sea air. There is no prettier smell on earth. Our plans had been to go back to the house up the coast and empty the contents of the still jam-packed garage into a rental truck and bring it back to New York once and for all. Then we were going to call the bank and let them know they could take possession of the house. Those plans changed when my phone rang.
It was an odd thing really. Normally whenever we're out on the water back in Maine, we never get a signal on our cell phones. The signals from the lighthouses usually interfere. However, with absolutely no signal the call still came in and our plans changed. I was going to need to be back in Boston urgently at the same time we were supposed to be loading up the garage. Gareth looked at me while I was on the phone and mouthed the words, "DO IT!" and so I did. I agreed to be back in Boston on the given date. I assumed that Gareth and I would figure out another date to come back again and clear out the garage, hopefully before the foreclosure process was in full swing. We'd spend the rest of the time we had in Maine gathering a few things from the house that we could fit into the car for the trip back to NY, and enjoy some time together on the beach.
There, I've said that ugly "F" word. Foreclosure. FORECLOSURE. I've mentioned it before out here, but the ugly truth of the matter is, we are very close to heading into the active part of the foreclosure process. It hurts to say those words and I do so as bitter tears sting my eyes and a painful lump forms in my throat.
I know that we are not the only ones going through this right now. There is a sickening number of families who are about to lose their homes due to the economy tanking, their own foolishness when buying a home they couldn't afford, the loss of a job, illness or maybe even a combination of some or all of those things. We weren't part of the subprime group that [in my opinion] in part led to the collapse of the housing market. We were more than able to afford our home when we bought it in the summer of 2007. We just had no way of knowing that Hell was about to unleash itself on our lives and that I would be emotionally unable to cope thereby precipitating one medical/mental crisis and that we'd have a child who had a crisis of his own which drained us financially. The litigation surrounding "The Very Bad Thing" and the toll it took on me was too much. I discovered, going through that entire nightmare, just how much inner fortitude of mind and soul I lacked and in doing so, it financially destroyed us.
We applied through the government's "Making Home Affordable" plan and were rejected on three separate occasions. We were told made too much on one occasion and then on another that our bills were too great to be able to balance any sort of mortgage modification. We were screwed. Then the other shoe dropped. Gareth lost his job. A job that he'd wanted since we first talked about leaving the U.K. and immigrating him to the U.S. We always knew Maine was were we wanted to settle and establish roots. Gareth has known, as long as he's known me (25+ years) that there was something that has always drawn me to the bucolic shores of Maine and to the people who call it home.
Eventually things just fell into place and the perfect job was his. After 11 months of navigating the U.S. immigration system, (we maintained two residences, one in Maine and one in the U.K. as Gareth wasn't allowed to reside here in the states while we awaited each step of the process), Gareth was given his green card. Luck continued to shine down on us with the birth of a beautiful little girl, being reunited with my older children from my first marriage, and then we were blessed again when we found out we could purchase our first home here in the states. Gareth had been a homeowner in the U.K. but I had never made the leap here in the states. This was a huge moment in our lives.
We were grateful for everything that had been placed in front of us.
Like I said, it all came to a crashing halt when Gareth lost his job. Can I just tell you how much it sucked, mere days before Meaghan left for her stint in boot camp with the US Air Force? At least we knew she'd be fine. Tired, worn out and homesick and beaten down, but she'd have a roof over her head, and food to eat. I was grateful for that much.
I don't know what happened when I learned that Gareth had lost his job, but I went into crisis mode and just started organizing everything, helped him get his ducks in line, reached out to recruiters I knew, helped him find the right headhunters for his line of work and just took control of the situation. Thankfully his time out of work was short-lived. Within 30 days he'd interviewed with and then accepted an offer with a company here in upstate New York. We thanked God and the Universe for the gift of this job and began making preparations to move. Things happened so incredibly fast that I don't think it hit either of us until we'd been here in New York for about a month that we weren't in Maine any more and that we were definitely going to lose the house. I look back on the time right after he initially lost his job and I was prepared to do anything and everything, even knowing that we'd probably have to leave Maine. I didn't seem so affected by it. However, here I sit, hating being away from Maine.
The clouds rolled back in and the skies darkened once again and my adjustment to being away from the only place I have ever felt was truly home, fell apart.
By the time spring arrived here in Saratoga Springs and the ice on the lake that fronts our home started to thaw, I think everyone around me thought my feelings about being here would begin to thaw too. We were still going back to Maine about once a month to check on the house, bring things back here that weren't included in the original move, and to visit with friends and those we considered family.
Every time we'd leave Maine it just got harder and harder. Gareth would have to drive because once we'd go back over the Piscataqua bridge and cross over into New Hampshire, the tears would come and I'd be a mess for at least an hour.
We'd come back here and I'd long to go back again and counted the days until our next visit, but at the same time I dreaded it because I knew we'd have to leave. I have tried my best to hide my feelings from Gareth because I don't want him to feel guilty about losing his job. There was nothing he could do about it. Many of his co-workers and those he considered friends at this company lost their jobs too. Some had been there more than two decades. There was nothing he could have done. I didn't want Gaby to pick up on my malaise about living in New York either. But she has and I hate myself a little bit more each day for not being better at covering that up.
Mostly I blame myself for everything that's happened and for the fact that I can't seem to get my head around living here. I haven't had any meaningful interaction with anyone at all aside from my dentist and a very good friend, Kim D., who has been super-awesome about making sure I always know she's available to listen and bring her kids over for a playdate. Everyone else around here is aloof or has no interest in returning a smile, a greeting or a friendly word. Every day I wake up and thank God for the gift of Gareth's job here when I know that others have been waiting months and in some cases, more than a year to find work. I don't take it lightly that he's gainfully employed. At the same time that I'm thanking God for everything he's blessed us with, I'm trying to pull up my big girl panties and then tell myself to "Suck it up, buttercup! This is where you are! Deal with it!" Others around me keep telling me that I need to learn to "Bloom where I'm planted!" I thought we'd already covered the fact that I don't have a green thumb and I feel like, at this point, it would take a shit-load of Miracle Grow to get me to bloom around here! And yes, I know, that's a really crappy attitude to have.
In the deepest recesses of my heart, I want to create the life I know I was led to live and in doing so, get my family back to Maine...but the other part of me whispers, "And what will the people in Maine who you so love and envy, what will they think of the deadbeat homeowners? Will they want you back? Will you ever have a place in Maine? Can you start over again there even though you failed?" It's a horrible feeling, having these two voices battling it out inside of me. One which wants me to realize my full potential and be happy, and the other that keeps reminding me of the failures which threaten to drag me back down into that place I've tried to hard to stay out of for the past 6 months.
After all, it was my failures which are costing us a home in a place we dearly love and those same failures have robbed us of any financial security we had.
One of the most ironic things about returning to Maine recently and which made it so bittersweet for me was the fact that my hydrangea bush in the front of the house has recovered from how horribly I mutilated it when we first moved into the house in the hot and humid summer of '07. I had no idea it was my absolute favorite flowering bush. I just thought it looked unkempt and wild and I took a pair of pruning shears to it and cut it way too far back. A couple of months later when the first signs of autumn started to appear, I realized just how horrible a botanical crime I'd committed when I saw three large blooms on the tree. There have never been more than three or four blooms since I nearly hacked it to death. Ever since learning (to my horror and utter regret) that it was a hydrangea bush, I've tried to nurse it back to health and hope it would blossom the way it was supposed to.
A couple of weeks ago when I'd made an emergency trip back to Maine after receiving word that the house had been broken into, I pulled into the driveway and was immediately greeted by the sight of hundreds of blooms on my (but soon to be Bank of America's) hydrangea tree...
I sat in the car and wept...for me, for that silly bush, for Gareth's dreams of raising his daughter in his own home, and for all the hopes and dreams we wished would bloom like those gorgeous ivory blossoms.
I don't know how much more time we have before we completely lose the house. Yes, in my heart of hearts I keep hoping something will happen and we can somehow manage to keep the house. Oddly enough, Bank of America finally did send us a proposed modification that, had we still been in Maine, and not paying rent on a home here in New York, could possibly have worked out for us...more than SEVEN months after we first contacted them about trying to work something out. It made me angry but I realized there was nothing we could do. Even putting renters in the house would not have been an option because the market will not bear what we'd need to pull in, in terms of rent. That's another thing that makes me incredibly sad every time we go back to Maine. More and more businesses are shuttered, and more and more "For Sale" signs crop up like out of control weeds. It's heartbreaking because I know that some of those people in those homes are going through what we are...the loss of a dream.
I'll eventually find a way to live with my bittersweet reality, but I won't ever stop dreaming about getting my family back to where our heart calls home.
