The Quiet House

I stayed behind with our dogs for a couple of days, a decision my husband and I had made together, while my husband hoped for a miracle five hundred miles away.

It felt surreal when I walked through our home—they had already turned off the electricity and water—and decided what we would need to continue our lives somewhere, somehow. When I realized that most of our belongings, the house, the cars, our friends, the life we knew and loved, would soon be lost, that’s when I felt like I was watching myself. This woman, who could face homelessness soon, this could not possibly be me. We didn’t deserve this. Nobody does.

This was not my reality; it couldn’t be. I would wake up from this nightmare.

I didn’t wake up. I packed, cried, cursed, silently screamed, and ten years later, I wrote a book about it. The hopefully final step of healing was written with the hope of reaching the one person who might be facing the struggles we did. The wish to give hope.

I wrote a poem about the moment when I lost touch with reality. Here it goes:

Some moments ask no questions.
They demand an answer.
Now.

Not much time to think.
No weighing of options.
No “maybe.”

What remains when everything else falls away?
What do you take with you when you can rely only on your inner knowing?

I experienced such a moment.
Suddenly, I was forced to decide what truly matters.
And that one question was louder than anything else in my life.

First, the warning.
Then, the possibility of eviction, the looming foreclosure.
And finally, that one situation where I had only a few days left to decide what to take with me.

In those days, something shifted.
Because suddenly, that question was no longer quiet.
Not philosophical.
But existential.

What is truly important?

***

My book. It still seems surreal to see myself as a rockie author—aka wanna-be writer 😉

Daily writing prompt

What’s a moment that made you question reality?

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