OOHHH, reality.

So I had to decide-call the creditors and stop their calls and explain our situation, or keep waking in the night worrying and being nervous...just need a few weeks to catch up. At least we're still working!! OR--keep waking up in the night, panicking and running from the phone calls. Ummm....

OK, I chose to answer all the 800 calls and just explain, face the music and take it like a brave sole:

1st call was to Home Depot...I explain, "construction is tough right now, just need a couple weeks and I will be back on track"...

"Oh, honey" says the person on the other line, "you are in good standing, we have a great relationship with you. I see horrible situations. I hear about the construction business and it's bad. Hang in there, we will get through this. Let me see what I can do."

Shocked, I hang up the phone. Wow, that was amazing. Never had a creditor been so understanding, that was a real person, not an individual that didn't care or understand, and helpful!

2nd call was to another creditor...I explain again and the woman says "Wow, that must be hard to wait 60 days for a check, how do you do it? I would die...we couldn't pay our bills that way. You poor thing. Me and my husband have it bad too. We used to work on helicopters and had a great income, but one day we walked into work and they let half of us go...I lost most of my retirement and I took this job for little more than I could get from unemployment so I would have a reason to get out of bed everyday."

I think to myself; this person has it so much worse than me, I need to say something! We talked for a while and I tell her to keep looking for the good, something has to bring us all out of this mess...we gotta stick together.

What happened to "us"? We surely did this to ourselves...why did this happen? How are we ever gonna get out of it? When will it become "normal" again. How bad is it, really?

Not that bad...I was reminded...while passing through my small town later in the day and saw a man standing by the side of the road with a sign that simply said "out of food".

OOHHH, reality.

He needs me to help him with food, I need him to help me see the truth: Life is worth living for others not just so I can shop without abandon, look cool in the latest trendy outfits, have the big house and vacation like I want. Maybe that is what we didn't learn while the times were "good". Maybe that's how we got here?

PAUL JAMES THOMAS

It's just another day, but grandpa is dying. Bad news. He won't be kind if I call, isn't really himself. Can't consider him like he was when I was a kid. It is times like these we have to be grown up.....I am a grown up, but when you think of Grandpa, I still feel like a kid. How to deal with it? It isn't as if it wasn't expected and I could cope but he was so angry the last time I heard from him. He was getting ready to sue me? What would grandma think if she were here? Is that the real grandpa or the new grandpa?

He was the only man I really thought I could trust, what happened? I will miss just knowing he was there, even though he really didn't show much interest over the years, I never stopped remembering that he treated me kindly when I was little, he stood up for me. When we went to their house, the rules changed and he got to say what we could do, and eat, and say. My parents couldn't yell at me and they certainly couldn't spank us there. Grandpa would say "If you think you're gonna do that at my house, you are wrong. You'll have to take her outside for that!"

He was always laughing and smiling, he loved to work and he smelled like trucks and gas and dirt. I loved that. His hands were big and strong and chubby. We would wait for his truck to pull up the long driveway and clap and run after him when he came home. French fries, always a trip for those, riding in the back of his pick up to the french fry place, all you could eat, even if we just finished dinner

That is the person I will remember and mourn.

Just another battle to fight; sadness, reflection, depression, the big giant WHY?