Acceptance and foreclosure....renter style

When I started this blog I asked myself was how personal was I willing to get in what I wrote here. This is pretty public form. If I felt pushed to write about something that involved more self-exposure that I was comfortable with would I do it? Like many questions, I couldn’t answer that one till I was right up against it and outside my comfort zone so here goes….

    I missed posting last week due to well…packing up everything I own. Short version of a long story is I was a few days late with rent and the property manager told me she was going to put a three day notice on my door a file for eviction. I lived there over four years. I’d been in the property manager’s office on Monday, talked to her about being late. Everything seemed okay. On Friday it suddenly wasn’t okay and I got the email about eviction.

     I chose to leave before things got to the legal point. Thanks to an enormous amount of help from my best friend, managed to get all my stuff packed, moved what’s really important to me into storage, sold the rest and found a temporary place to land. I had few little meltdowns, got one of many winter viruses that’s floating around Taos and just kept taking care of what was in front of me.

    Saturday night I found myself thinking about all the stories I’ve read of people going through foreclosure. This is pretty much the renter’s version of foreclosure. Didn’t want to join the club but here I am. Considering some of the stories I’ve read, I landed better than many people do. I have a couple more rounds of pack it and move it before I make to a longer term house sit, but for now I have a roof over my head.

    I’m also blessed to have an awesome community of friends. Within days I had offers of couches, extra rooms, a place to stay in Santa Fe and even one in Colorado. I knew no matter what did or didn’t get resolved, I wasn’t going to end up sleeping in my car. Giant thanks to all of you who offered help, support, a bed and sent emails asking about house sits.

    How am I feeling about all this? Angry, sad, confused, displaced, frustrated, grateful, anxious, powerless, battered, exhausted, shocked, down and probably a few more that I can’t name right now. All of which have led me to do some serious thinking about acceptance and what that means to me.

     Short term acceptance is about acknowledging what is without resisting, fighting or trying to change the things I can’t change. Check. I’ve gotten that far, but long term that’s not enough for me.

    Will I survive this? Yes, but I don’t want this to be something I simply survived. That’s not to say there’s no merit in surviving, in making it through the hard stuff. The bigger question for me is about how I move through this experience. What will I take away from this? How will that support me in being more of who I am?

     We all get thrown hard stuff. What happens to us is ultimately less important than what we do with the disasters. I’ve known many people who are content with surviving. I’ve heard them say “I survived X or Y”, often with defiance and sometimes pride. I’ve noticed that staying with “I survived” seems to fix those events as permanent reference points that they continue to circle around for years. This is an old paradigm bit – focus on the goal, the action and where you want to arrive. How you get there isn’t important.

   I’ve met other people who carry their disasters differently. For them surviving seems less significant than what they took away from the experience and how it changed the way they live. I wonder if someone holds on to that defiant “I survived” reference point, have they really moved on or through the experience?

      Long term acceptance to me is about moving through so I can move on. That means dealing with the messy emotional bits. No shortcuts. Long term I want to accept this as an experience I grew from; one that doesn’t bring up inner turmoil when I remember it

Acceptance is a choice

   Yes it is. If I don’t chose acceptance as my trajectory, I risk ending up in resentment, victim or some other place I really don’t want to live. However if I simply chose acceptance and don’t do anything else, the choice is meaningless. If I decide I want a cappuccino and don’t do anything about making one, the cappuccino isn’t going to magically appear. It requires action and effort on my part. 

Choosing acceptance is not the same thing as having acceptance

     We’ve all read things about acceptance being a matter of practicing “positive thinking” or looking for the good in the situation. No.  The first step toward acceptance is acknowledging what is. Not just the things I like or the “positive” things, but all of what is. Retreating into “positive thinking” and disregarding other emotions that are “negative” isn’t acceptance. It’s denial and avoidance.

    Acknowledging what is involves taking inventory. Making a list of everything that’s in me and outside of me regardless if whether I like it or not. That’s not an easy thing to do. I’ve felt a number of things in the last week that my ego judged as being pretty self-indulgent....why me?, this isn't fair, poor me, etc.  I’ve also felt a certain pressure to “be more evolved” and act as if I was okay when I didn’t feel okay. Being real about where I am means letting myself have all of it. It could have been worse. It sucked. It’s still pretty crappy. I am grateful for having a bed, a shower and good friends. 

Acceptance is process not an event

     When it comes to long term acceptance, the journey dictates the destination. Even though I chose to accept this little disaster short term, if I don’t give myself time to process the experience I risk turning it into a defiant “I survived” or making myself a victim of what happened. I’m grateful for having the tools to move through this. Knowing how doesn’t make it any easier or more fun. It just means avoidance isn’t an option.

    I have no idea what I’m going to take away from this experience or how it will change the way I live. I’m standing too close to see that yet. I won’t get to an expanded perspective until I feel my way through all those emotions that I couldn’t give much space to last week in the midst of packing. How long this process takes is not up to me. I can only chose to be present and do my best not to get in my own way.

     I do have a renewed sense of gratitude for the basics that I’ve often taken for granted: shelter, heat, a bed, a kitchen and a shower. No TV or internet but right now...so what?
     This experience has also reminded me how much illusion most of us hang on to – security, permanence, control and thinking we know what’s going to happen in the next week or even today.