I’m a forty-year-old who grew up in a little town called London, Kentucky. I went to Vanderbilt University where I got a degree in Political Science, then moved on to Georgia State University to study art. I ended up marrying and moving to Jackson, Mississippi for one year, then on to Memphis, Tennessee where I got another degree, this time in Drawing and Painting at Memphis College of Art. The first marriage ended, and I fell in love and married Alex, a graphic designer. I had lured Alex away from his home in Atlanta, getting him involved with this great new real estate investment business I was starting…
By the end of 2008 it had become clear that the business wasn’t going to survive. The combination of some bad choices, bad luck and the degenerating economy resulted in us owning a decent amount of property that paid for itself as long as they were rented and unless something big happened to one of them. But someone was always moving out, leaving a vacancy of several months and something big seemed to happen at least once or twice a year. Despite getting a new property manager who did not believe every sob story a tenant told, we knew we weren’t going to recover any time soon.
All through 2009 Alex sent resume after resume out with little to no result. I sent out quite a few myself, taking a crap job to bring in something to offset our dwindling reserves. By September the savings were gone and the house payment was the first thing to fall by the wayside. I applied for a loan modification and hoped for a miracle. Alex got a job and I got a little more money at mine; it looked like we might just make it. We had one week of relief; then it all hit the fan. I got shifted to part time. The loan modification had just come through; it would be tough, but we thought we could manage. A couple of days later, Alex’s boss let him go because they could no longer afford to pay him (he’d been there all of 2 months, how could they not know?).
The subsequent two flat tires within two more days pretty much let us know that the Universe did not want us to stay in Memphis. We were (and still are) almost completely broke with a house that had to be sold or would be foreclosed on and no real options in Memphis.
My brother-in-law and his wife offered to take us in. Since we liked Pittsburgh when we visited, we took them up on it. It wasn’t like we had much of a choice. Now, we’re moving to a new city with no jobs lined up, two big dogs in tow and nothing much to contribute to the household except our sunny dispositions.
I’m looking at the whole thing as a new adventure, a completely fresh start. We wanted to leave Memphis; we just didn’t know it would be like this. As I watch the news these days, it doesn’t look like we’re alone in having to start over in the middle of our lives. So, I thought I’d record our progress, maybe discover a few things that could help others in similar situations, shed some light or find some humor in the whole thing.
Hopefully, it will at least keep me from going crazy.
