Back on the Deck

Welp, I'm back.  After a chaotic, stressful last few months ('cause I needed more of that), I'm back on my deck...which has been largely inaccessible to me throughout all this.

So I'm dusting off the deck chairs, and this blog.

A few days after my last post, we received a letter in the mail from the fire insurance portion (CFP, government funded...really, the only way to do it in a high fire zone) of our homeowner's insurance, telling us that they were not renewing our fire policy.

Yeah.

No fire insurance. In a high fire zone, with fire season just a couple months away. And only very, very expensive alternatives to this government option. And a mortgage contingent on the insurability of the house.

Yeah.

Enclosed with the non-renewal letter was a letter dated eight months prior, back in October, which included a list of things we needed to fix to keep our policy.  It also let us know that if we didn't do this by the following May 29, our policy would not be renewed.

And we were receiving this letter for the first time on June 12.

Our kids had been out of school on summer break for about two days at this point, and so our entire summer got swallowed up in frantic emails & calls with our insurance agent and to contractors, and then figuring out how in the world to pay for all this, cancelling all plans to spend anything that wasn't essential or to go anywhere since we had to fix all this stuff.

Our insurance agent assured us it wasn't such a big deal.  We had two months, after all, before the September 1 cancellation date.  Ummmm, yeah, but we should have had eight months to take care of these things and figure out financing.  It actually is a big deal to try to do in two months what you should have had eight months to do...and through no fault of our own.

We fully intended to take care of what was necessary. It's not like we were slackers.  A grouchy inspector came by the previous September 23 (I remember it vividly, foremost because it was my birthday) and told us there would be a list, and we would receive it soon. But, very much on edge about this, we checked the mailbox daily like hawks...and it never came.

Six weeks later--this is how attentive I was to this!--I emailed my insurance agent and said, "We had this inspector come and tell us we needed to do a bunch of stuff, but we haven't heard anything."  He said it was just routine and not to worry about it, and that they would hear anything before we did.

Always watchful and on edge, days, then weeks, then months went by, and although we were trying to keep our hands out of our savings account for the full exterior paint job we knew was inevitable, we slowly began to relax into what seemed like not such an emergency.

And then, WHAM.  There it was.  "Your policy is being cancelled."

Tears. Anger. Frustration. Frantic searches for help.  Chaos.  Encouragement from outsiders to calm down, that everything would work out.

And it did work out.  Today I am sitting again on my beloved deck, with a brand new roof, all tree branches trimmed within regulation from the roof, an entirely freshly painted exterior, a bunch of unsightly wires removed (by me) from the exterior, vents replaced, the electrical box tidied up, and (to save $5000, also done by me) progress on getting the deck painted. And ultimately after so much unnecessary drama, the fire insurance policy was renewed.

But I'm not in a good place.  It worked out.  But why did it have to work out like that?  It got done, but we intended to do it all along.  It's not the getting done that concerned me.  It's the unfairness of being blindsided and sucker punched by the whole situation that has me still all these weeks later sucked dry, infuriated, and flabbergasted.

Other crap happened this summer, too, in the midst of all that.  A letter from the IRS saying we owed $2,200 in taxes...because I forgot to check a teeny tiny box that says we had health insurance all year.  I madly sent off an amended return, but weeks later, we still have no confirmation from them that this is cleared up.  I (with no exaggeration) have PTSD when I go into the post office now. That tiny box that holds our letters has been a holding cell for bombs of late, and I have to muster courage to open it and peruse the contents.

Our car started doing this weird thing where the key won't come out of the ignition.  We paid a mechanic $300 to have it fixed, and it's still happening.

The counselor I was talking to (of questionable help anyway) ditched me.

Our savings (which was an anomaly anyway) is depleted.  Our spirits are crushed.  Our bodies are exhausted and ailing. Our ability to plan and hope for the future, at least for doing anything that is not demanded or drudgery, is demolished.

I am going through each day like a robot, willing myself at every moment not to give up, and forcing myself to just do the mundane things required of me. Take the kids to school. Paint some of the deck. Attempt to exercise. Attempt to clean something. Attempt to read.  Try not to let my raging depression swallow me whole.  Pick the kids up from school.

This is the abundant life?

I'm struggling.

Patrick preached this summer for two weeks at the Wesleyan Church in San Dimas (our only church connection at the moment.) Since this church is part of his spiritual history, he told his story...including a realization at a certain age that his relationship with God had strong transactional elements.  That is, he was operating under the understanding that if he did certain things for God, God would do certain things for him.

And he found this to be false.  Just because we do everything "right" doesn't mean that nothing goes wrong.  Just because we barter with God for results doesn't mean he complies. Obviously. But we often live this way.

I live this way, and for the State as much as for God.  I am a responsible person.  I have every intention of paying every bill, filing my taxes, complying to every code. I am not civilly rebellious. If I do the right things, I should avoid the penalties of doing the wrong things.

And yet, here is a letter in the mail, wagging its big ol' crushing, condemning finger at me as if I have somehow been delinquent.

It hurts my pride to be categorized like that.  It makes me scramble for solutions and answers when things could have been straightforward and planned out responsibly.  It stirs up chaos where there could have been order.  And it infuriates me.

So much unnecessary drama and trouble.  

I have empathy for those whom life has blindsided.  But I have none for those who have brought (and continue to bring) on their own trouble in life through irresponsibility.  And increasingly less so.  There's enough trouble in each day without causing more.

All this gained wisdom, this self-restraint, this checking boxes, it doesn't make any difference, though.  All my responsibility doesn't gain me any points or rewards.  It doesn't give me a get out of trouble free card. The sun rises for and the rains falls on the evil and the good, the righteous and the unrighteous.

And apparently we're just supposed to accept that.

Rather than just give up and get swallowed up by what feels like the meaninglessness of bothering to be good.

I am aware of the elements at play here, but I have yet to make peace with them.  Based on what I've read, it's part of the dark night journey...the stripping down, the coming to terms with the ashes from which we're (eventually) reborn and rebuilt.

I'm not rebuilt yet.  I'm still sitting in the rubble, mostly asking, "What the hell?"