In April of 2004, I finally left the hotel and moved back into my home. The garage was completed, with a snazzy new floor, drywall, a sink and a new washer and dryer. The house had a new roof, a new alarm system and a new living room wall and ceiling. Since I had to get a home equity loan to keep up with the fire expenses and also because the house was empty, I had the bedroom floors redone in bamboo and the original hardwood in the dining room and living room refinished. The whole house was repainted inside and out. It looked better than it had in years.
Was it worth it? My public adjuster who fought the Evil Empire (my insurance company) had told me all along it would all work out and he was right. Like so many things in life though, having people telling you it will be alright means nothing when you are in the middle of something that seems insurmountable. The great thing though is once you start successfully doing hard things, less and less things seems hard. I always think of the scene in “Forrest Gump” where Forrest and Captain Dan are in
their boat in the middle of a hurricane and Captain Dan keeps screaming, “Is that all you got?”
I have a bulletin board in my garage of pictures taken just days after the fire happened. I like it out where I can see them so when I am having a cranky day, I can look at them and remember. I take a moment and look around the garage and see what came out of so much stress and heartache. And I
remind myself that a lot of the stress and heartache could have been avoided if I just would have believed, instead of focusing on how bad things seemed at the time. Yes, it was worth it, just learning that lesson.
Just in case I am coming off all evolved, there is one final footnote to this story that brought me a lot of joy, even though it wasn't very Zen like. I was feeling a little down that first Christmas home. All my beloved Christmas ornaments had been destroyed in the fire and although I had gotten a fair amount as gifts, the tree looked a little bare. The day after Christmas, I opened my LA Times Sunday paper to the Real Estate section, as I did every Sunday morning. There on the front page, was an article detailing an ordeal someone else had gone through dealing with my very own Evil Empire, trying to get their house put together after a fire. The insurance adjuster they were dealing with? The same one I had spent eleven miserable months with. There on the front page, in the holiday season, for all the world to see, was an article, using his name and calling him out for being the same jerk he had been to me.
The tree suddenly looked perfect as I did a happy dance around it!
Was it worth it? My public adjuster who fought the Evil Empire (my insurance company) had told me all along it would all work out and he was right. Like so many things in life though, having people telling you it will be alright means nothing when you are in the middle of something that seems insurmountable. The great thing though is once you start successfully doing hard things, less and less things seems hard. I always think of the scene in “Forrest Gump” where Forrest and Captain Dan are in
their boat in the middle of a hurricane and Captain Dan keeps screaming, “Is that all you got?”
I have a bulletin board in my garage of pictures taken just days after the fire happened. I like it out where I can see them so when I am having a cranky day, I can look at them and remember. I take a moment and look around the garage and see what came out of so much stress and heartache. And I
remind myself that a lot of the stress and heartache could have been avoided if I just would have believed, instead of focusing on how bad things seemed at the time. Yes, it was worth it, just learning that lesson.
Just in case I am coming off all evolved, there is one final footnote to this story that brought me a lot of joy, even though it wasn't very Zen like. I was feeling a little down that first Christmas home. All my beloved Christmas ornaments had been destroyed in the fire and although I had gotten a fair amount as gifts, the tree looked a little bare. The day after Christmas, I opened my LA Times Sunday paper to the Real Estate section, as I did every Sunday morning. There on the front page, was an article detailing an ordeal someone else had gone through dealing with my very own Evil Empire, trying to get their house put together after a fire. The insurance adjuster they were dealing with? The same one I had spent eleven miserable months with. There on the front page, in the holiday season, for all the world to see, was an article, using his name and calling him out for being the same jerk he had been to me.
The tree suddenly looked perfect as I did a happy dance around it!
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