So I sit here as I have been for more than an hour pouring my heart out on this page, and then it was gone. I keep saying that things just can’t go right and here we go again. I will try to recall what I wrote…

She’s Gone Missing…it’s me. The me that I was discovering in the last year with this blog. If you read this blog you know our situation. It has been more than a year now and Dan is still unemployed. We are both unemployed. We have tried. He has had many, many interviews, filled out countless applications, and nothing. Dan has been the breadwinner of this family for most of our relationship. I contributed in a small way, usually around Christmas via small holiday church shows, but now I have been looking as well. No one wants to hire us. I worked at a grocery store for more than eighteen years, yet not even the grocery stores that I have applied to want to hire me. I think it has to do with our age. Most of the applications are on-line. I have put way too much of my personal information out into the cosmos in hopes that someone might call me. No one calls. I think they see a date at the top of the page and decide we are too old. If anyone would just take the time to meet me they would see that I look much younger than my age would imply. If they would give me a shot they would see that I am never late, that I err on the side of being early, that I am impeccable in my appearance and in my work ethic. They would see that he can help their brand, their product, succeed.
We are losing our house. We have been aware of the possibility for some months now, but we held on to every ray of hope, grasping with everything we have, but in the end…disappointment. Yes, we need to downsize, but not like this, not without a choice. This house that we worked so hard on, working to make it a home has become yet another weight pulling us down. We could do as some do and stay, stay and not pay and wait, but that isn’t us. We are ethical people, we are people who do the right things the right way, but that doesn’t seem to matter anymore. It has hit us hard, but it is time to go. She’s gone missing, the girl who was finally finding her way, who was discovering the passion long since lost, she is gone. She is buried under the moving boxes and the dwindling finances. Buried under the stress and the worry, the sleepless night and nightmares. Stress and worry do terrible things to people. At night she reaches over to feel the movement of her husband’s breath rising and falling because she has lost so much that she is worried that the one she loves the most will disappear. There is no work tonight, there can’t be. The weight of our situation has filled my head and heart, there is no room for creativity for the moment.
I told my sister the other day that it is like a seesaw. One day Dan is down and I am up, assuring him that all will be OK, the next day it is me hitting rock bottom grasping his offered hand to pull me back up. Now we are adrift in our life, hanging onto each other looking for the hope that will keep us afloat. Situations like this can tear people apart, not us, we just hold on tighter. Next Tuesday is our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. It won’t be the celebration I dreamed of. Twenty-five years ago we were broke and decided to get married, twenty-five years later and things haven’t changed much. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad. So we move on. We sell this house and take half of the money and roll the dice on our future, our business. There is one thing I still believe in, that’s us. I hope to have the opportunity to show people who we are, and how much we care.
I mentioned our business before, I’ve asked before, and I’m going to do it again. Our daughter set up an account to help us in our dream. If you are in any way inclined our appreciation would be immeasurable. I’m posting the link once again.

http://www.gofundme.com/8jgl04

I will post a photo. A piece I did in Photo shop. It was meant as a gift to a friend. So many people in our lives have reached out with love, with prayers, with much appreciated financial help. I am a person who is quiet in their faith. Some people take that as non-belief, it isn’t, I pray every day. I pray not for my house or “stuff”, I pray for answers, I pray for those I love, I pray to understand. Hopefully someday I will.