It’s been a long time since I posted here.
So much has happened over the past year since I was first trying my hand out in the “mommy blogger” world. I then got so busy blogging everywhere else that I neglected my home.
It was also two years ago last week that my husband’s business partner was in a catastrophic car accident– a day that certainly changed our lives forever.
He was paralyzed shortly after taking out loans on the company’s PAID OFF equipment to float debt from the bad housing market (people stopped needing trees removed when the subprime mortgage crisis hit) and also to cover the debt he racked up while going through his messy divorce.
We were left with the debt ($75,000 of it) and no viable way to pay it off.
I was 9 months pregnant and collecting a tiny check on maternity leave from the state, my husband ran the operations of the company– but he can’t sell to save his life, so keeping the business was out too.
Eventually we were forced into personal bankruptcy. In fact we just went to court last week. It’s been a huge mountain of pressure on my chest for six months now and i’m happy to say it’s almost behind us.
But this time two years ago, his partner asked to borrow our car to go where he was going that day.
He was taking his son to the doctors for a check up and didn’t think his big truck could fit in the parking garage.
He’d also been medicating himself at that time because of the divorce and something in me felt very uncomfortable giving him my car. I remember feeling so strongly that my husband and I got into a huge fight about it that morning.
Because I wear the pants (kidding), my husband told him no and his partner eventually talked his ex-wife into giving him her car– which he destroyed later that day when he got distracted and did something dumb (I dont want to post deets w/ a lawsuit going down).
Now two years later (exactly one day before the statute of limitations was set to run out), the other driver sued Joe’s partner and his ex-wife as the owner of the car for her “pain and suffering” (she wasn’t hurt but she did find out she was pregnant at the time of the accident and I think had rough labor….maybe? But all was OK in the end)
Anyway, that could have been my car. That could have been me named in this lawsuit (b/c the insurance is in my name)– on top of everything else we’ve had to go through this year.
And quite frankly, i’m not sure I could have handled it.
This year has just been so incredibly hard personally, financially, emotionally and spiritually. Thankful we’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
As many people know, I work with lawyers. I’m quite fed up this past week watching many of them be unnecessarily nasty, gripe about nonsense, pick fights with people in list servs, blogs, whatever. Shoot, i’ve even gotten a taste of the poison– and i just think wow, it’s so hard to be THAT miserable when you’ve come through what I have.
When you’ve bootstraped yourself up from the point of ruin, you don’t have time to sit online and gripe all day. You live for each moment and do your best with what you can. No time to sweat the small stuff.
So before I start name calling and stabbing people, it’s good to be back here. Moral of the story– listen to your gut, trust your intuition and quit getting bent out of shape over nonsense. Life is way to short to do otherwise.
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Wow– the year you went through must have been horrific… but you made it. Congratulations!
The last paragraph of your blog is SO DEAD ON… I even wrote something similar recently on my blog… anyway… I guess some people can’t see the forest for the trees and let the little “crises” dictate their day.
Welcome back and here’s to a great 2010!