I hate missing posting days! Messes me up, as I have lots of stories to tell and I love telling them here.

However on Thursday, I had something else to write. My resume.

Without going into too much detail, immediately following my dad’s accident, I was put on a performance plan at work. It  ends in late September in termination, should I not meet the requirements which are purposely very difficult. I’ve been doing well, and have already done the majority of what they asked me to do, but this is just the latest push by my bosses to let me go. They’ll never stop trying. They have a type, and I’m not it.

So I had to write my resume, because last year we bought a house, and I can’t stand the thought of watching it be taken away from me. I’ve lost my home before, but it was a rented home. This is mine. It was one of my many bucket list items that got fulfilled last year. I even talked to Don Henley about it! I can’t lose it.

I’m terrified. And I’ve been cursing myself for a few weeks now. “Why did we even buy it? It’s too much money. Property taxes in this neighbourhood are too damn high. I knew this was going to happen. Why did I let this happen? Why didn’t we stay in the apartment?” This house came up unexpectedly. We hadn’t planned to buy yet, but it was already in the family and is basically the perfect house for us. “But we should have waited.”

I knew last year that my work would never stop trying to force me out. The house, our bills in general, require the majority of my pay to maintain, though admittedly not all of it. But I’ve been beating myself up left right and centre because I’ve been here before. I’ve lost jobs. I’ve lost homes. I’ve been too poor to eat, sometimes, in the past. It’s part of the reason I travelled and went to shows, though it sounds counterintuitive: I saved up for those, and paid for them all in cash. And I saved up the spending money. I frequently ate far better, took care of myself better, while on the road. Talk about an escape. But I’ve never had something this major to lose. I feel like I’m about to fail everyone I know on a grand scale.

Mr Coyote pointed out that had we still been in the apartment, we never could’ve helped out my dad. I dismissed this. “We still had a spare bedroom. He still could’ve stayed with us. And we would’ve had more money to help with their move and everything else.” It only made me feel worse.

Yesterday, I had to go down to my dad’s work to pick up something that was sent for him from head office. Chatting with one of his fellow managers, she asked if he was going for walks along my street. “Not yet,” I explained, “We have about 5 stairs off the porch that are fairly deep and would be hard for him right now. So that’ll wait a little longer.”

Our house is only about 5 minutes from the apartment we moved out of. I have to drive past it to get home. Lately I’ve been looking at it thinking, damn it. If we were still there, everything would be fine.

On the way home I glanced out at it as usual. And suddenly it hit me.

Stairs.

We were on the 3rd floor of a walk-up. There were about 20 stairs, fairly steep stairs. And as I sailed along, driving my dad’s car so it got a good long highway run, I realized there wasn’t even any visitor parking.

But the stairs! My mom and Mr Coyote had to help him get up the couple stairs we have now. He’s almost to the point, 2 weeks later, that he could make it down them on his own. He’s almost ready to try.

He wouldn’t have been able to do 20, that’s for sure. He would’ve had nowhere to go out of the hospital. Mr Coyote was right. We couldn’t have done anything except pay for a hotel with an elevator with that money I was talking about for awhile, and nobody wants to convalesce in a hotel, alone.

I’ve been wondering for weeks now why we had to buy this house. I believe in some sort of higher power, and I was wondering why he or she or it would let us do this, just for me to turn around and lose it.

Stairs. That’s the answer. If this was in the cards, we had to be here for it.

Everything happens for a reason. Even the few times in my life that I’ve stopped believing that, it usually just proves itself to be true anyway. This is one of those times.

And I’m holding onto that. It has to be true. This has to all be part of some grand plan. I’ve always landed on my feet before, and now I feel like I probably will again.

Because everything happens for a reason. And I’m holding onto that thought for dear life.