The saga sags along

It's been a rough week. In addition to having my mortgage vanish due to no fault of my own, I heard from my realtor and my mortgage broker that banks and lending institutions have become increasingly skittish and are turning down well-qualified people left and right -- at alarming rates during the past few weeks. As a self-employed consultant, I wondered how a nervous bank would react to my profession. Plus I was just nervous after the last incident. Everyone kept insisting I was a "strong and stable applicant" for a mortgage, but in this crazy market, who could predict? My own realtor who has been in the biz for a long time said she couldn't predict.

So I have not been sleeping well, have been re-examining whether or not I should move, have been planning for what I might do if I could not get a loan (invade my retirement funds???) and on and on. I have been moments away from breaking out into hives. The phone rings and I leap. I dream about wandering.

I have been calling my mortgage broker and my realtor every day. I have been IMing with friends about it, talking on the phone and face to face with friends about it, trying to get my mind off it -- and packing boxes anyway. I have been praying. I have tried to be hopeful.

Meanwhile I have put contractors on hold who had been scheduled to do work ...sigh.

And I bought some boxes and packed some more. Packing became a faith statement. If my stuff was in boxes, I must be going somewhere.

I asked God if this was a message or just a fluke. Should I be learning something about this other than how to go with the flow? Or was flowing the lesson?

Leave it to me and my Olympian capacity for worry ---not only did I fret about the mortgage, but I got to worry that I was missing whatever message might be attached .

I decided to just methodically get through each day -- doping one "progress-enhancing thing" a day, as hard as that was. I wanted to keep the ship of my life pointed toward newness.

It sucked. I wish I could be rosy about it. It sucked. It sucked going through it without a life partner, too, while I am bitching about suckiness. But OK, maybe that was the lesson. That I could get through it alone -- or actually not alone -- because of my superlative support network of friends who have upheld me in this process.Maybe that was part of the message,to shut the heck up and see how lucky I really am -- ya' think? I always need to hear that part.

People are dying of hunger, being torn apart by war and disease, and I feel like a mess because I am waiting for a mortgage? How dare I! I am lucky to have this as a problem, fortunate beyond measure to have this as a problem. Mata, I said to myself, shut up and pack a box.

So that is what I was doing when my mortgage broker called this afternoon to say that we have a new lender and that we are now aiming for a Friday closing.

Amen, folks, amen.