A Personal Essay

I used to think owning a house meant I had finally made it.

I had savings, a career, and years of HR experience. I had worked my way up after spending a good portion of my adult life struggling financially, and I had finally done what we're told responsible adults are supposed to do. I worked hard, saved money, built a career, and bought a home. Then I got laid off a month after I bought it.

I remember thinking, Seriously? You couldn't have done this a month earlier, before I bought the house?

I spent seven months looking for another job while watching my savings disappear. Eventually, I found one, although I had to take about a $10,000 pay cut just to get back to work. Getting another job didn't mean I had recovered financially, though.

Before I was laid off, I had spent money on the house because I thought I could afford to. I had purchased things using zero-interest financing, intending to pay off whatever was left before the promotional period ended. I had the money, I had a good job, and at the time, I had no reason to think I wouldn't still have both.

Then I lost my job.

By the time the 18-month interest-free period was ending, the cash I had planned to use to pay off the balance had gone toward keeping myself and the house afloat. Suddenly, I had a large payment I had never expected to carry long-term. I had also put solar panels on the house before losing my job, another expense I had taken on when my financial situation looked completely different.

Eventually, I got a raise, but I was still struggling. The raise didn't replace everything I'd lost during those seven months, and it didn't make the financial commitments I'd made before the layoff disappear. I was earning money again, but I was still dealing with the consequences of losing my income.

Then I got laid off again.

This time it took nine months to find another job, and I went through almost everything I had left trying to keep the house and everything else afloat. Now I'm working again, but at another pay cut, and I'm losing the house. It sucks. There's really no spiritual way to make that sound pretty.

All of this has made me think a lot about money and what security actually means, because I've had periods in my life when I had money, and periods when I was so broke I couldn't afford food.

Strangely enough, one of the happiest periods of my adult life happened when I had very little.

When I was 19, I packed everything I could fit into my car and drove from Washington State to Virginia.

In some ways, I had been waiting for that moment for most of my childhood.

I grew up in a home where there was a lot of abuse and control, and for years, I remember wishing I could hurry up and turn 18 so I could finally leave. I wanted the freedom to make my own decisions, have my own space, and figure out who I was when nobody else was telling me who or what I was supposed to be.

At 18, I worked for about a year to save up some money and buy a car. At 19, I left.

I didn't know anybody in Virginia. I didn't have much money, and because I was 19, I didn't have much of a credit history either. I had to pay my first three months of rent upfront just to get someone to rent me an apartment, which wiped out a good chunk of my money.

The apartment wasn't exactly great, either. This was back before you could easily look up an apartment complex online and read hundreds of reviews before moving in. I found a place in Hampton, Virginia, and after I moved in, I discovered that I had landed in a pretty bad area. The people above me were dealing drugs. Right before I moved in, I found out that a gun had gone off.

Eventually, I moved to Newport News, Virginia, and found a much better apartment. I was safer, but I was also broke. That first Christmas, I couldn't afford a Christmas tree, so I made one.

I bought five pieces of green cardboard, taped them together, and drew a Christmas tree shape across them. I cut it out and taped it to my wall. I cut a trunk out of an old brown cardboard box, bought yellow cardboard for the star, and used glitter pens to draw gold garland across the tree.

I put the few presents I got from my mom and some friends underneath it, and I still have a picture of me sitting in front of that tree. That was my Christmas picture that year.

The funny thing is that I was happy.

I had fun making it. I've always been creative, and apparently, if I couldn't afford a Christmas tree, I was going to manufacture one out of cardboard.

By my second Christmas in Virginia, I was doing a little better financially and could afford a real tree, about five feet tall. My mom sent me some ornaments, and I finally had an actual Christmas tree in my apartment.

Things were slowly coming together.

I worked at a photo lab, back when those existed, and I went to community college. Some of my classes were held on the William & Mary campus, which was amazing for me because I've always loved history.

That's part of why I chose Virginia in the first place. George Washington is my hero, and I wanted to live somewhere surrounded by the history I loved. Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown, and all of these places I had spent years reading about were right there.

For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was living my own life. I got a 4.0 my first semester and a 3.8 my second. I felt good, looked good, made friends, and did exactly what I had set out to do. I didn't have much money, but I didn't need much. Looking back, those were probably two of the happiest years of my adult life.

Leaving Virginia wasn't easy.

My parents were getting divorced, and my brothers were struggling. I was the oldest, and I felt responsible for them. Part of me felt like I needed to go home and be their big sister, but another part of me had finally built a life that was mine.

I was thriving academically; I loved Virginia, and I wanted to go to William & Mary. After everything I had gone through, I was finally happy, so giving that up wasn't something I took lightly.

My spiritual life didn't begin recently. I was already exploring spirituality in college, and I read Conversations with God during my freshman year. I was trying to understand my relationship with God and what spiritual guidance looked like.

My mom once told me that when she was struggling with a decision, she would pray about it and then open a book to a random page. Sometimes she found something there that helped her decide.

I thought, I'm going to try that.

At the time, I was reading a book about the Battle of Saratoga during the American Revolution. I asked whether I should stay in Virginia or go home, then opened the book to a random page. The paragraph I looked at was only a few sentences long, but in that tiny paragraph were two names: Thomas and Jesse.

Those are my brothers' names.

Thomas wasn't particularly unusual in a book about the 1700s, but Jesse caught my attention because that name was rare back then. I went through the book afterward looking for it, and as far as I could find, that was the only page where Jesse appeared.

Somehow, in this tiny paragraph on the page I randomly opened after asking whether I should go home, there were both of my brothers' names. I was already leaning toward going home for them, so to me, that was confirmation.

I went home.

Sometimes I still wonder what would have happened if I had stayed in Virginia. Maybe I would have gone to William & Mary. Maybe I would have stayed on the East Coast. Maybe my life would have gone in a completely different direction.

I'll never know.

What I do know is why I made the decision. I believed my brothers needed me, and at that point in my life, being their big sister mattered enough that I was willing to leave behind a life I loved.

My relationship with my father had already become extremely difficult while I was living in Virginia.

At one point, I was studying for a test and specifically told him not to call me because I really needed to concentrate. He called anyway, then, when I didn’t answer, disguised the caller ID so I wouldn't know it was him and would answer. Eventually, I unplugged my home phone just so I could study in peace.

After I moved back to Washington, things escalated further. During my parents' divorce, a judge had told my father not to contact me. On one particular day, my mom also specifically told him not to call the house because she was going somewhere else, my brothers were with him, and I would be the only person home.

He called anyway.

At that point, I was thinking, if he isn't going to respect my boundaries, my mother's boundaries, or even what a judge told him to do, what exactly is he going to respect? Shortly afterward, I got a restraining order. The judge allowed my dad to buy my brothers’ cell phones so he could contact them directly without calling the house.

Ending my relationship with my father also meant walking away from financial support, and sometimes I've wondered whether I should have maintained some distant relationship just so I would have had that safety net. I don't think I could have done it, though.

Money can't compensate for everything, and peace is one of them. Financially, that decision made my life harder, but I still believe it was the right decision for me.

My parents spent much of their money during the divorce, and I largely had to put myself through college, which meant student loans. Then I graduated in 2008, which was fantastic timing. There weren't exactly employers fighting over new college graduates during the Great Recession, so I ended up in retail management.

Retail taught me a lot about people. Some of the nicest people I've ever known didn't have impressive titles. They stocked shelves, worked registers, processed returns, and worked long shifts for little money.

Customers could treat them like dirt.

I've literally had people run shopping carts over my feet while I was stocking shelves, even when there was plenty of room to get around me. I've been screamed at over return policies I didn't create. One guy even freaked out on us and kicked one of our registers.

Years later, I would sit in meetings with executives, owners, CEOs, CFOs, COOs, and directors. Some were wonderful people; others absolutely were not.

What I learned is that someone's salary or job title tells you very little about their character. I've known people with very little money who were incredibly kind and generous, and I've known people with enormous amounts of money and power who seemed to look at other human beings primarily in terms of how useful they were to them.

I've also worked for successful business owners who genuinely cared about their employees, and you could see the difference that made in the company they built.

Money doesn't automatically make you good or bad. You're still who you are.

Eventually, I changed careers.

I moved to San Diego to help my grandparents and landed a seasonal HR assistant position at SeaWorld. I made $10.50 an hour, which wasn't exactly a fortune, and I could only afford it because I wasn't paying rent.

That little job started my HR career.

My next HR assistant job more than doubled my income, and eventually I moved into higher-level HR positions. It wasn't a straight line, though.

There were periods when things were frighteningly tight. At one point, I was so broke that I had to wait for money to come in before I could buy food, and I went about a week without buying groceries.

Going hungry because you don't have money changes the way you think about money. It's very easy to say money doesn't matter when you've never had to wonder how you're going to eat.

Money matters.

It pays for food, electricity, and housing. It can get you out of an unsafe situation, give you options when something goes wrong, and give you breathing room when life gets difficult. Eventually, I finally had that breathing room. I built a career, earned a decent salary, and started saving money.

For a while, I thought that meant I was finally becoming secure.

There's something else that keeps coming up when I think about the happiest periods of my adult life: Christmas trees.

I know that sounds like a weird connection to make in an article about money and security, but I don't think the trees were ever really about Christmas.

Growing up, very little about my life felt like it belonged to me. My childhood was shaped by abuse and control. I was sexually abused by my father for years, while my mother was extremely controlling in a different way.

Even something as simple as Christmas could feel controlled.

My mom had a particular way she wanted everything done. The tree had to look a certain way, Christmas morning followed a certain process, presents had to be opened a certain way, and we had to take pictures and wear certain things. If things didn't go according to plan, someone could get snapped at or yelled at, and sometimes one of us would end up in tears.

Then there were those stupid red bows.

Every year, my mom put big red fabric bows all over the Christmas tree, including a giant red bow on top.

I hated those bows.

I realize this is an absurdly strong opinion to have about Christmas decorations, especially compared with everything else that was happening in my childhood, but I still really hated those bows. They muted everything.

To me, a Christmas tree was supposed to be shiny and sparkly and magical, and everybody knows you're supposed to put a star on top.

Okay, maybe not everybody knows that, but I certainly did.

The bigger issue wasn't really the bows, though.

When other people control so much of your life, even small choices can start to represent something bigger. I remember thinking as a kid that when I have my own family someday, Christmas will be different.

I wanted it to be warm and fun. I wanted traditions, but I wanted people to actually enjoy them. I didn't want people crying on Christmas or kids getting yelled at for not following the procedure correctly.

For example, I completely understand opening presents one at a time. I'd probably do the same in my own family because, as someone who loves giving gifts, half the fun is watching somebody open what you picked out for them.

There's just a difference between a tradition and a procedure. I wanted Christmas to feel magical instead of feeling like everyone was following the Christmas morning operating manual. Looking back now, I think that's part of why decorating my own homes has always meant so much to me.

It's not just that I like pretty things or Christmas decorations. Decorating is one way I've made a space mine. I get to decide what feels warm, what feels beautiful, what feels ridiculous, what makes me happy and, yes, what goes on top of the Christmas tree.

Which brings me back to that cardboard tree in Virginia.

When I got to the top of that tree, I knew exactly what was going there.

A freaking star.

Not a bow.

I specifically remember thinking about my mother's Christmas tree when I cut that yellow cardboard. After years of staring at that giant red bow on top of her tree and thinking, A star is supposed to go there, I finally had my own tree.

Granted, it was taped to a wall and made out of cardboard, but that was beside the point. It was my cardboard tree, and I was putting a damn star on top.

At the time, I don't think I would have sat down and analyzed all the psychology behind why that mattered to me. I just knew I finally got to do it my way.

Looking back, I understand it differently.

I didn't have much money. I didn't own a home. I didn't even own an actual Christmas tree.

But I had independence.

That apartment was mine. The tree was mine. Christmas was mine. Nobody was going to yell at me for decorating it wrong, and there wasn't a correct way anymore unless I decided there was.

Maybe that sounds like a lot of meaning to put on a silly cardboard Christmas tree.

For me, it wasn't silly.

It represented freedom.

That wasn't the last Christmas tree to mark a chapter of my life.

The following year in Virginia, I bought the real five-foot tree.

Years later, I lived with a long-term boyfriend, the only boyfriend I've ever lived with. Our first Christmas living together was exciting for me because I'd never shared a home with a partner before.

We bought a real Christmas tree for his condo, took our picture in front of it, and decorated the place, although if I'm being truthful, he mostly let me run the show.

He wasn't much of a decorator or a Christmas person, so I called him the Grinch. I bought him the old How the Grinch Stole Christmas! cartoon and even put candy coal in his stocking.

I love coming up with creative gifts, so I had fun with it.

I was happy that Christmas. I really liked him. I thought the relationship had potential, and things were going well at the time, but they didn't stay that way.

Not long after Christmas, the relationship started to deteriorate, and eventually it ended. Looking back, I don't think I ever actually loved him. I cared about him and enjoyed parts of the relationship, but it wasn't the kind of love I hope to have someday. Still, that Christmas is a good memory.

When the relationship ended, most of the Christmas decorations came with me because I'd bought them, and eventually those decorations followed me to Texas.

Years later, I moved to Texas and got an apartment that I absolutely loved.

You walked through the front door into a little entryway with a closet, then went up a staircase into this big, open living space with really high ceilings. It wasn't enormous, but the ceilings made it feel much bigger.

Sunlight poured through the front windows, and the whole place felt bright and airy. There was a little nook where I kept my desk and computer because I worked from home. The kitchen was too small for someone who loves to bake, but I made it work. I finally had my own place again, and when Halloween came around, I went a little crazy.

My birthday is the day before Halloween, so I've always loved it. I put purple lights all over the balcony, blinking spiderwebs in the windows, and these creepy holographic pictures going all the way up my staircase that seemed to change and watch you as you walked past them. There were pumpkins and decorations everywhere.

Then Christmas came, and I went even crazier.

I bought a beautiful artificial Christmas tree from Home Depot, six and a half feet tall. I spent forever fluffing all the branches, covered it in ornaments I'd accumulated over the years, and put it right in front of the window where everybody outside could see it.

I strung multicolored lights across the balcony and pulled out all of my Christmas decorations.

Then came the nutcrackers.

So many nutcrackers.

My grandmother used to take me to The Nutcracker when I was little, and it became our thing. I've collected nutcrackers ever since, and my personal philosophy is that you cannot have too many nutcrackers.

I'm aware other people may disagree.

They're wrong.

By the time I was finished decorating, it looked like Christmas had thrown up all over my apartment.

I loved it.

I baked about six different kinds of cookies that year. I made a cake for Christmas, then apparently decided we hadn't consumed enough sugar and made another cake for New Year's.

My mom and my youngest brother visited, and I also spent time with family nearby. I baked, decorated, celebrated, and enjoyed every ridiculous minute of it.

I was lonely sometimes, though. I worked from home and didn't know many people yet. I was trying to meet people in a new state, which isn't always easy as an adult, especially when you don't have an office full of coworkers to interact with every day. It wasn't perfect, but I was happy.

Looking back, I think that was probably the next happiest period of my adult life after Virginia. And there's something interesting about that. Once again, I didn't own the place. I was renting.

For a long time, I thought one of my biggest dreams was to own a home.

I was getting older, I was tired of renting, and I had worked hard and saved money. Eventually, I bought the house.

I was proud of myself. I had done it alone, and I thought I could handle it alone. Maybe I could have if life had gone according to plan, but life has an annoying habit of not consulting our plans.

One month after buying the house, I lost my job. Seven months of unemployment ate through a huge portion of what I had saved. I eventually found another job, but at a lower salary, and financially, I never fully recovered from those seven months.

Then I lost my job again, and this time, I was unemployed for nine months. I rented a room to traveling nurses, cut expenses, and tried to keep everything afloat, but it wasn't enough. Years of savings disappeared.

I'm working again now, but I had to take another pay cut just to get back into the workforce, and there is no realistic way for me to catch up on everything I fell behind on.

So, I'm losing the house, and I hate that. I'm not going to put a spiritual bow on it and tell you I've discovered that the house never mattered. It mattered to me. I worked for it, I wanted it, and I loved having my own home. Losing it hurts.

Now, though, I'm starting to understand why owning a home may have carried so much emotional weight for me in the first place. My childhood was spent waiting to get away from people who controlled me. As an adult, having my own space became one of the most tangible expressions of my independence.

Maybe that's why I attached so much meaning to owning a house. Renting gave me independence, but owning felt permanent. Nobody else's house, nobody else's condo, nobody else's rules.

Mine.

Except life has now reminded me that ownership isn't necessarily permanent either. That's painful, but it has also made me wonder whether I misunderstood part of my own dream. Maybe what I've always wanted most wasn't actually to own a house. Maybe what I've always wanted is a home.

Somewhere warm and safe, somewhere I can bake too many cookies and put nutcrackers on every available surface, somewhere I can put a Christmas tree in the front window and make everything sparkle because I can. Somewhere the people I love can walk through the door and feel welcome.

Someday, I hope I get to create that kind of home with a family of my own.

When I look backward, though, I realize I've already created it more than once. I created it in a rented apartment in Texas. Long before that, when I couldn't even afford a Christmas tree, I created it with green and yellow cardboard, part of an old box, and some glitter pens.

The building wasn't what made those places mine.

I did.

For most of my adult life, I've thought security meant having enough money. Enough savings, enough income, enough equity, enough retirement money, a good job, and eventually a house.

Those things absolutely make life easier. I want enough money to live comfortably, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise in the name of spirituality. Poverty isn't noble, and struggling isn't inherently spiritual. There is nothing enlightened about wondering whether you can afford groceries. Money can make life dramatically easier.

What I've learned after four layoffs, though, is that money and security aren't quite the same thing. A job can disappear because someone else decides your position isn't needed anymore. A house can become unaffordable when the income that paid for it disappears. Even savings can vanish when unemployment lasts long enough.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't save, build careers, buy homes, or prepare for the future. It just means none of those things can guarantee that life won't change.

For years, I think I confused the things that represented security with security itself. A house is an asset, a savings account is money, a job provides income, and a title is a position. All of those things are valuable, but none of them are permanent.

Maybe real security isn't reaching some magical financial number where nothing bad can ever happen to you, because I'm not sure that number exists. Maybe part of security is knowing that if everything changes, you still know how to build a life.

I keep coming back to that 19-year-old girl in Virginia, but the truth is, she wasn't the only version of me who had to start over.

I've been starting over for most of my life. I moved constantly as a child, including switching schools three times in fourth grade. As an adult, I've moved across the country more than once, changed careers, survived layoffs, lived with family, roommates, and a partner, and built homes in apartments, rented rooms, and eventually a house of my own. More than once, I've given away or sold almost everything I owned because I couldn't take it with me, only to slowly accumulate furniture and build another home somewhere else.

Maybe that's part of why losing this house hurts so much. I don't think I was only looking for a home when I bought it. I think I was looking for permanence. After spending so much of my life starting over, I wanted to believe I had finally built something I wouldn't have to leave.

Apparently, life had other plans.

Now, it looks like I'm doing it again, although I wish I weren't. I'd much rather write this article from a paid-off house with a giant savings account and tell you how enlightened I've become.

That's not my story.

I'm writing this while I'm still in the uncomfortable part, and I don't know exactly what comes next. I'm building Healing Without Wings because I want more ownership over my life. After four layoffs, I'm tired of knowing that one company, one executive, or one economic downturn can pull the rug out from underneath me. I don't know yet what this business will become, but maybe that's part of why it matters so much to me, too. The theme keeps repeating itself.

I want my life to be mine.

I've been poor, and I've had money. I've stocked shelves and sat in meetings with CEOs. I've lived in an apartment with drug dealers upstairs, rented rooms in other people's homes, lived with a partner, rented an apartment I adored, and eventually bought my own house.

I've been happier with almost nothing than I've been during periods when I had far more. That doesn't mean money doesn't matter. It does. It just isn't the same thing as freedom, and maybe it isn't quite the same thing as security either.

I'm still sad about losing my house, and I would much rather keep it than have another opportunity to learn how resilient I am.

I've had enough opportunities to build character. I'm good.

But somewhere underneath everything that's changing right now, I'm still the same person who packed everything she could fit into a car at 19 and drove across the country because she wanted a life that belonged to her.

The same person who couldn't afford a Christmas tree, so she made one out of cardboard.

And after a childhood spent being told how everything was supposed to be, she finally got to decide what went on top.

A freaking star.

I figured it out then.

I'll figure it out again.

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