Paying My Own Mortgage

Do you know how many months I have paid my own fucking mortgage? It is now 28 months of me somehow making it work. I didn’t qualify to buy this house on my own. My wealthy older brother had to sign with me for multiple reasons, both the reality that my salary was too low and that I hadn’t been working in finance for long enough—not to mention the divorce hadn’t settled. But I paid the down payment all by myself (I mean, if you don’t count the many times he bailed me out previous to that day) and I’ve paid the mortgage by myself as well (if you don’t count him paying rent and food for one of my kids during the divorce).

When I was first married, I was the one who made more money. I was the one who filed taxes and who budgeted regularly. But as time passed and I had more and more kids, I couldn’t keep doing all the things, and we lost our house back then. We were in $100,000 in credit card debt and had to move into my parents’ basement. With four kids under age six. Where I babysat two to three other kids to earn enough money to have food.

In under a year, I managed to pay off every cent of that credit card debt (minus the $10k my dad paid to help us get out of the house we were under water in and which he had signed a second mortgage on). By the time the divorce hit, I had also managed to get three kids through expensive Eastern colleges and to pay off the marital home. You’d think that I’d feel confident about my capabilities. I’d clawed my way up the publishing world and written a bestseller.

But the day my ex demanded I leave the house, I truly believed that it was likely I’d end up living in my car. I wasn’t sure that was the worst thing in the world. Honestly, as long as my kids were OK, I’d have happily lived out of my car. I spent eighteen months in a one-bedroom apartment while I tried to rebuild my life, but it wasn’t pretty. I felt an inch away from having to live out of my car that entire time. I was so traumatized. I didn’t think I’d ever have a safe space for my kids to come and spend time with me, let alone a whole house to fill with afghans.

I remember crying to my brother a few months before I bought the house, complaining to him that I would never be able to own a home again.

“I can fix that,” my brother said. “I can help you buy a house.”

I told him no, no, that was impossible. The housing market was ridiculously high and I was too proud to accept help from my older brother just to make my life a little easier. I’d only accept help when it was an emergency, for my kids.

But he was so sure about it that it stuck in my head and I started looking at houses online. Then I contacted one of my friends who works as a realtor (when she isn’t writing) and she said she thought I could probably do it. Another friend offered to be my loan officer and help hold my hand while I got freaked out over the dozens of ridiculous documents and letters the bank wanted me to offer them (including my transcript from my Princeton Phd WTF?).

And the day came when I was actually closing on my house. It felt like a dream. There have been hard days since then. I’ve been deeply suicidal in this house. But also, I’ve made it through those times. I’ve been able to have my kids stay over during the holidays and to host meals here. I’ve paid my mortgage 28 times. Somehow I’ve managed it, even though it is ridiculously priced and I complain about it often.

I didn’t do it alone. But I will say that I think that the people who have stepped up during the last three years to help me are a pretty good testament to something in me that allowed me to collect those kinds of people. It’s not the house. I mean, it is the house. I love my house. But also, I love what the house represents. It is the new life, the new me that I’m allowing to unfurl here, in all the glorious crazy color that I can find.