Fear

Things took an interesting turn around here last Friday - E lost his job quite unexpectedly. We're still not sure of the exact reason but as more time passes we're realizing it was very likely just a personality difference with his 24 year-old, quite immature, micro-managing, immediate supervisor.

On Friday evening when E showed up at my office to "drop the bomb" on me, I immediately reacted in the way I've been programmed to react all my life - I freaked out and burst into tears - nauseous, hyperventillating, shaking, the works. I immediately imagined us losing the new house because we couldn't pay the note. I was inconsolable.

I called my friend Lisa to ask her to light her Ya-Ya candle because the power of Ya-Ya prayer is amazing. As I was crying she said, "Wait just a minute! You are not about to be in forclosure on your house. Do not go there right now. Talk to me about losing the house only if it comes down to it. Going there now when your don't have forclosure papers in your hand does you no good."

Lisa went on to tell me that she's been in the grasp of such fear before. In fact, it's happened to her enough that she's got a whole personality built for fear. She calls it "Suck". Suck is a nasty looking guy. His clothes are ratty and he smells of cigarette smoke. His teeth are yellowed, his hair is greasy and he shows up at your house and sits on all your furniture and sometimes just won't go away. She said that sometimes when she's stronger, Suck only hangs out on her front porch because she won't let him in the door. Other times he comes in uninvited and she lets him hang around a day or so. But sooner or later you have to be tough enough to throw his butt out on the street because as long as he's in your home, you are paralyzed. She told me that night that if I needed the weekend to let Suck hang around then to go ahead and let him. But the sooner I kicked him out, the better.

I swear it was as if she were standing in front of me, shaking me by the shoulders, and saying, "Snap out of it!" It was like cold water being thrown on me. Suck kind of hung around that evening but by Saturday morning I had booted him to the curb.

I am refusing to look upon this as a negative but rather as a positive. E's hourly wage certainly was well below what he is worth and he hadn't gotten a raise in the 15 months he worked for that company. In fact, I told him he'd have to hunt really hard to find a tech job that paid him such a low salary. I remembered back to when we bought this house five months ago. I remembered how everything just fell into place. We were the first to call about the place and the first to see it. It was the first house we'd actually felt strongly enough about to call to see. We were in it a month later. I always believed this house was meant to be ours. God isn't about to let us lose it after only five months. Shoot, we haven't been able to enjoy the pool yet.

So thanks, Lisa, if you wind up reading this. I owe you one for snapping me back into reality and introducing me to Suck. Now I can actually throw him out when he tries to come back around. And right now I'm living with both feet in today instead of one in yesterday and one in tomorrow. It's really hard to stay here but I've managed to be in the present thus far. It's only taken me 43 odd years to figure that out. [vbg]