I Want to Fight

RETURN · ESSAY TWO

In 2008, my husband and I were in a sweet spot in life. He was kicking butt in the mortgage industry and I had just come off a president’s club winning year in my pharmaceutical sales position. Our daughter, also our first born, was four months old and we were in the complete throes of new parenthood. All the love, all the “firsts,” and let’s not forget all the sleepless nights. The future looked bright, right on the other side of some sleep. Then it happened.

The housing market crashed in a way our generation had never seen before. As investments, my husband and I owned properties — five, to be exact — and over the course of mere months we lost every. single. one. Including our own. The mortgage company my husband worked for collapsed and we found ourselves in uncharted waters.

The day came when we were going to be removed from our home. I’ll never forget reaching out to our circle of friends, asking them to help us move our belongings out because the bank was evicting us. All of them came. I watched them load our life into pods as I stood holding our now seven-month-old baby. Holy shit. This was not on the ten year goal list when we made it.

My husband looked at me and said, “We don’t have to do this. We can walk away from it all, rent a house for as long as it takes to clear our credit and begin again. I’ll let you decide.” I looked at our life piled into a guest bedroom, our tiny daughter in a pack-n-play in the living room, and felt the absolute injustice of it all. I realized I had spent most of my life not standing up for myself. I feared bullies. As a little girl I had to face them at school but I also had to face them at home. I learned to be quiet, toe the line, and never have an opinion.

It was then I turned to him, looked him dead in the eyes, and said, “I want to fight.”

This was such a turning point in my life. It was the moment when I said I wouldn’t back down and I believed in myself enough to know I could weather the storm. We fought the bank for six months in court. I drove by our house every single day. I held my commitment to fight so strongly, I would sit in front of our now vacant house and see us moving back in. I would see the weeds get cut down and the pool shocked back to blue water. I saw our daughter playing in the yard.

The day before it would all be over forever, our attorney found discrepancies on the documents the bank’s lawyers had presented to the judge. They lied on their documents. She let them know they could give us our house back or she would expose the fraud in a court of law. They agreed to let us purchase our house back for a fraction of what we owed on it. We won. I chose to fight and WE WON. Underneath all the self-doubt and insecurities, my self-worth rose up and said, “Lady, you’ve got this.”

Choosing to fight doesn’t always result in winning but it has taught me to know myself as someone that can face and survive a challenge.

What fight are are you contemplating? Is there already one you’re proud of? Tell me…