I'm going to be homeless

[underahedgerow]

58. I've been there and back (it was hell) but you can recover and start over. I had to give up my dog

sell everything I had, live in my car and in the back of my friend's restaurant, leave my KID (age 16) to stay with her friends and start all over, without a penny, from scratch.

I started over as a nanny, given a room to live in, in a nice home for a single dad looking after his kids and household. I sold most of my stuff, re-homed one of my 2 little dogs, one who went to a super nice family. I got to keep one of them, thankfully, but she was on the fence too until the dad said we could give it a try, and it was fine, thankfully. I got to stay in touch with the lovely people who adopted my other one, and they were the best doggie parents ever, so that was amazing.

Thankfully my daughter was looked after by parents of her friends, but they had no room for me, especially because of the damn dog. So I stayed in the workshop of my friend's restaurant where my stuff was stored while I was selling it. I slept on a mattress on the floor with no heat, and didn't want them to know... but he figured it out and discretely gave me the key to his business so I could sleep on the couch in there and take a shower. He never told anyone, bless his heart.

There is so much more to the story, but this isn't about me today. What I want to say is you can recover, you will have to make sacrifices you never imagined and your life will never be the same, but it's not the end of the world. I don't blame anyone but myself and a very bad investment choice I made. But I did what I had to do in the aftermath, sucked up my pride and scrubbed toilets and did someone else's laundry and worked my ass off to scramble out of the deep, dark hole and slowly grab my life back one minute at a time. There were many days when throwing myself in the river seemed like the best option, but I held on just a little but longer. I wasn't brave enough for that... For the past 5 years it's been one step forward and 2 steps back and I'm still not recovered completely, but I'm grateful that I've held on and I'm doing pretty good and I have options and a relatively better life.

This is a situation many of us face at this age, nearly 55 and not in good health. I hide my physical and social problems and get in there and do a good job with a stupid smile on my face. We're considered old now, aren't we at this age? The younger ones always get the job, the man, and we're invisible sometimes. We have to sell ourselves on our wisdom, reliability and maturity and hide our mistakes, none of us are perfect. But it is possible to grab this life back and to fight back and soldier on and muster up the courage and humility to do what needs to be done to survive.

Put the pooch in foster care for now. He'll be fine and once you're back on your feet you can reclaim him. Pack up your things so they're well organized, pack for yourself only what you need and find a place for just you, and find a job, any job, even if it's cleaning toilets. This is the business of living life and if you've made it this far you can keep on doing it and pull yourself out of the hole. It won't be fine, but it will have to do for today. Listen to yourself and no one else, do for yourself and no one else. No one else has your back but you, you can't rely on anyone but yourself. Use social services in every possible way, accept any help that is offered that makes sense.

Forget about what got you here and look at what's in front of you. Don't let this stuff hold you back anymore.

You'll be ok. You're smart, creative, and strong in spite of all this and you'll pull through. It's just what we do. I can only give you my best wishes and confidence that you'll make the right decisions and get through this pile of crap. XOXOXOXO