Let's Talk About Steps

 After the craziness of having a an offer accepted on a home, the closing process presented with its own challenges. In an attempt to take advantage of a down payment assistance program, the bank issuing that part of the loan, denied the application a mear 4 days before closing. This situation was the first of many situations in the past 60 days in which I learned a lot of about humility and gratitude. 

When I talked with my family about the turn of events, my family was awesome and extended a hand to help me get this place in my possession. It required a delay in closing but since I cleared underwriting just fine, the application for an entirely new loan took 10 days. Because of my awesome family, we got things back on track. I was really concerned that I was going to have to look for another apartment. I had put in my 60 days notice at the place in Woodbury. It was already rented out starting July 1st and the funding was pulled the 2nd week of May. 

I had a bit of a tough time in the beginning of May. Work was not going very well. I had a situation arise in which I was coming home and checking my malpractice insurance coverage. I had some pretty serious allegations thrown at me which came as a total surprise. I was obsessing about it. I was wondering (yet again) why I even bothered with this field. I had an instant flashback to when I was in this situation in my nursing license. There was no fault found in this nursing case, just a very angry family that was doing anything they could to deal with their anger. I happened to get caught in the crossfire by picking up a shift for someone. I knew that as this process progressed in this current situation, the same could happen here too but the stress of this process is way too much. 

As this situation was coming to a head, the funding for my house was pulled. I was trying to search for the meaning in all of this. I was getting the message that I shouldn't be purchasing a house. In hindsight, now, I am getting a better sense of what I needed to learn from all of this. For one, the bank that pulled the down payment assistance funding has a history of being entirely unreasonable with anything related to mortgages. So, for one, it might have been a good idea that I didn't get the loan from them. I ended up getting a slightly better rate and my monthly payment was slightly less as well. Ultimately I closed May 25th, 2018 at 4:00pm.

The other purpose....the recognition of the amazing people, especially my family, I have in my life everyday. My family has historically been phenomenal in crisis situations. We band together and get things done. My friends were helping me pick out colors and offer suggestions on furniture layout. I had a ton of plans to redoing most of this place prior to moving in. With the shift in funding, I wasn't able to do as much, however, I am super proud of what I was able to get done. I showed up every weekend and painted and cleaned and painted and cleaned.....until....... 

With 10 days to finish the moving process, I missed the last step at my apartment while I was moving boxes. I fell with all of my weight on the outside of my right foot. I broke a bone and 2 ligaments. For the previous month, I had done most everything myself and had a few people ready to help me with the final stuff that I could not move on my own. I did all the painting on my own. Thank God I had a few friends that helped me change locks and clean a few larger items in this place before I started painting.  Now, I was reduced to crawling to my car and driving myself to the ER. As I was sitting in the ER, I was thinking, "Seriously? This is the worse timing...", etc. etc. I was wondering what the heck I was going to do.

To be very transparent, I don't always like reaching out for help because I am not always sure that anyone is going to be available to help. That is not a guilt thing to anybody reading this who know me. Our lives are busy. Our lives have changed as we age. There are a lot of times that I see the call out for help on FB and I am not able to do anything. It's not that I don't want to, I might be unavailable, the distance is too  far or traveling. I was in a fearful place that no one was going to be available to help me especially with such short notice. The irony of it all is that I preach day in and day out "YOU HAVE TO ASK FOR HELP!". "CALL YOUR SPONSOR!" "CALL YOUR THERAPIST/COUNSELOR!" "TELL OTHERS WHAT YOU NEED!!!!" Then, here I sat thinking, I really don't want to ask for help because what if no one can help me?

So, the recovery lesson for me was a big one. When I threw out the SOS for help, everyone I contacted stepped up and offered their help. MAM and JQ came over to make sure I had a bed to sleep in the night the big stuff was moved. AND, they moved the cats. AND they yelled at me to sit the hell down and not injure myself more. Not to mention MAM worked her contacts to get me an ortho appointment within 24 hours of my injury!! My mom cleaned and organized the kitchen so that I can eat and not have everything in boxes until I can move around more freely. My sister schelped boxes for me despite the fact that things were packaged poorly. BH and her husband drove down and moved all this strange small stuff and got the remainder of the junk out so that I could have the cleaners come in and get me settled to move out. I had this amazing sense of peace that it was all going to get done.

My work family all banded together and made sure that I didn't have to get up to pick up my clients from the lobby which is a LONG way if you are injured. They got me lunch or drove me to lunch. They put together a little makeshift foot rest to keep my foot elevated. I was assigned a coworker who watches how much I was getting up. (I am allowed 15 minutes of every hour to not have my foot elevated.) Every day people stop by and check in. They also remind me to ask for help and certainly understand how unbelievably stubborn I can be when I don't. The work family also reminded me I would be able to get this all done and offered some cheerleading for me to get to the end of it.

I have also met a few of my neighbors. My one neighbor really has a heart of gold and told me within 15 minutes of meeting him that he was in recovery. I shared quickly that I am in recovery too. Same drug of choice. He has about 7 years on me :) He has power washed my deck, gotten me up on all the gossip of my neighbors and has been extending hints and tips on how things work around here. He has also been taking my trash out as well since he has seen me hobbling around in this boot. I haven't been in a place where the neighbors are out and about waiting to meet me. There is a big sense of community around here. 

Since I have been here full time, my mom has been coming over to continue with helping me unpack. There are not words to express my gratitude for all this help and organization. Slowly but surely this is becoming my home. I still have a lot of work to do, however, the hard part is over. I am no longer living between two places. I love the location I am in. I am meeting more and more of my neighbors and have really enjoyed them. The cats are doing well now. 

The 12 steps of AA ask me to let go of what I cannot control and put my trust and problems into the hands of those who can do something. I admit that I am an alcoholic. I admit that I am really stubborn and don't like to ask for help. God got my attention to let me know I was figuratively missing step 3 by literally missing the last step. The universe was telling me to slow down and ask for help. When I refused, I was gifted a boot and friends/family who are fully aware of what I need to do to not make it worse. Part of working a good program is to be of service to others and offer gratitude when others have been of service to me. It's been quite the adventure with this whole house deal. I look forward to getting my boot off in about 6 weeks. In the meanwhile I will keep practicing that whole "asking for help" thing.

Peace!
​Julie