The Breakdown

There are many types of breakdowns in life. There are car breakdowns...there are appliance breakdowns...there are budget breakdowns....and then there are the nervous breakdowns. With all I have been through, I can't say I have actually had a nervous breakdown. But last Saturday I felt like I was almost there.

The house closed on April 7, but so far, I haven't done anything to it. It will take a lot of work because it is a foreclosure. I have been purchasing items off of ksl.com hoping to fix the house as inexpensively as possible. The garage was filled with all the remodeling products that needed to be hauled down south. Lucky for me, my boss offered to drive his trailer down for me. He brought the trailer by and with the help of neighborhood boys it was loaded rather quickly. There were kitchen cabinets, appliances, tables/chairs, couches, windows, lights, a water heater, french doors, plumbing fixtures, vanities, etc. and 2700 lbs. of tile. The trailer was filled and ready to be picked up on Saturday night.

I began the drive down alone on Saturday morning. I had one major dilemma. Who was going to help me unload the trailer on the other end? My father is on oxygen and is not capable of that anymore, my son has mandatory work at the census and couldn't get off, my go-to-guy for everything had hurt his knee two weeks before and was on crutches, my boss had broken his foot at scout camp...I was completely out of options. I did what most Mormons have learned to do...I humbly called the bishop of the new ward.

This was a big step for me. I am not one that likes to ask for help...especially from strangers. And there was one major blip in my plan...my boss couldn't deliver the trailer until the middle of the night Sunday morning...and he had to leave to get back to work early Monday morning. This meant total strangers would be asked to help me on the Sabbath - gasp! I really felt it was the "ox in the mire", but nevertheless...no one in my new place knows what I have been through and knows how hard it is to try and make it as a single woman. I felt all the guilt, imagined and real, that came from this request. The bishop hesitantly agreed to call the Elder's Quorum president and have some men come help me.

I was driving the four hours to my new home and the weight of aloneness just came over me. I began to sob. What am I doing? Can I really do this? I am alone and this is the way it is going to be...and it is scary! This may have been the first time I actually realized that I was alone and this is what it felt like to depend totally on other people.

I arrived at my house, empty and dead bug infested. It didn't take long to find out the water had been turned off. I had paid my two hundred dollar deposit to have it turned on May 5...but nope! I called the emergency line and said, "To me this is an emergency!" They sent someone right out. I have not had the gas turned on, so hot water was non-existent.

There was no table, no chair, no other person there. I grabbed some Mexican food and sat on the hard tile floor and began to ponder the choice I had made. Could I really do this? Was I crazy? As I usually do, I quickly gave up the pity party and went to work stripping the wallpaper - another one of my reasons for going down there.

A little after midnight the truck pulled in...and after many thanks to my boss and his family, I fell into a deep sleep on my cot. I awoke at 8 am the next morning and decided to begin unloading...not knowing if anyone would come or not. I worked for 2 hours and unloaded about 20 percent of the trailer. It was slow going and heavy work...not for a girl like me. At ten o'clock, cars and trucks began pulling in to my little cul-de-sac. Seven men and three young men had the trailer unloaded in 30 minutes. I was happy, relieved and so grateful for their service...and their muscles.

I attended church, felt welcomed, and returned home with my Arby's sack for dinner. As I entered my home this time, I had a chair to sit on, and I actually felt as if I was in the right place. I fell asleep Sunday night, on my cot, by the bedroom window. As i looked up to the heavens, I noticed that in the country you can see millions of stars. I wished on one, and fell into a very restful sleep.



The nervous breakdown was short lived, and I was back in business :)