In between packing and painstakingly moving via a small Nissan Altima everything that constitutes my life for the past ten years, it hits me that I'm supremely frustrated. Like people in the 30's must have felt: hardworking, talented, hungry, confused, with nowhere to turn. The tv reminds me that the holidays are approaching - someone's fantasy of impossibly huge, lavishly decorated Christmas trees, parties, drinks, laughter, good cheer. I want that. I want my ten years of memories to stay put. I want the only house my daughter has known - as she tearfully reminded me last week - to remain the only home she knows. And I blame myself - for not saving, for not going back to school, for not selling my home in 2006 and moving to a trailer, hunkering down for the economic storm I knew was coming.
But, most of all, I feel alone. The reality is, I'm far from alone.
What to do about this?
Somehow, it brings to mind Fahrenheit 911. Remember how before that movie, it felt like everyone had lost their minds completely and bought into the Bush rhetoric, the war, Das Homeland Security, The Patriot Act, just all of it?
One of the most beautiful outgrowths of that movie was the long lines of people snaking around movie theater doors, the records it shattered for attendance. Not because I'm just a fan of Moore, but because for the first time in what felt like forever, I knew I was not alone anymore. That feeling of being marginalized, an outcast, was instantly gone.
Now that the feeling is back, and being a person who always believed things happen for a reason, I'm having real trouble making sense of things, or feeling a part of something (however depressing it is) larger than my own life.
I'd like to recapture that, somehow, in this situation. I'd like to hear from people who have lost their homes, or are on the verge of losing their homes. What have you done to weather the storm? How did you pack up your hopes and memories without falling completely apart? Where did you go from there? Where is there to go?
Maybe we can start some sort of group - those of us fortunate enough to somehow maintain Internet access, via our new locations or through the public library. I don't want you to feel alone any longer. I don't want to feel alone. We've been through just about the worst a person can go through, barring catastrophic illness.
Somehow, I know we have something to offer one another, if only a little bit of hope for a brighter tomorrow, or maybe an idea or two about how to maintain dignity and hope in the face of disaster.
As it was so often in the past, the Daily Kos community may be one bright spot in a sea of despair, yet again. Since 2004, I've come here when I need insight, hope, flashes of brilliance from other progressives.
So please, tell me your stories of foreclosure, near foreclosure, financial despair, and let's help one another find our way. Together, we can.