#secondworldproblems
New Orleans is not third world nor is it first world, it is comfortably second world, and here I sit in this place with second world problems. I am cashing out most of my 401K to buy a house with cash because I can’t get a mortgage having been in my business less than two years. Everyone and their mother has warned me against doing this and as one savvy friend said to me, “Maybe because everyone is telling you not to, you should” and so I am.
But when I took the money out of the account this morning, I had heart palpitations. And all I could think of was my mother sitting in that slum apartment in Metairie in her dying days, waiting for her garden, waiting for what was not to be. She realized this subconsciously and therefore accelerated her departure from this reality to find the beauty she longed for in her heart. Read: she drank herself to death.
I got a text message from my architect about a great deal on a lot – it’s huge, it’s Uptown, it’s cheap – where was this lot just before Friday when I found my dream house? So I drove by there anyway to look at it and it was a great lot – across from a cemetery and running along an old Entergy building but large and expansive and around the corner from good friends of mine.
A friend of mine keeps telling me, “God doesn’t do confusion.” And so I’m trying to keep to that mantra – if it is confusing, it is not worth plowing through, and yet, I don’t feel confused as much as, okay so if you want to know what you really want, have choices – it changes your perspective on a dime. I drove by the Cleveland Avenue house on the way home and it still looked like home, it still called to me, but maybe with less illusions than it did before.
I had the privilege of interviewing two incredible men today – and you will read more about that at my race and parenting blog tonight or tomorrow. I’ve not been posting because as I mentioned in my earlier post, I’ve started back in overdrive and am juggling too many things to think straight or at least to focus well.
I did take some time to notice the angel’s trumpets blooming in abundance in front of a dilapidated house near Broad Street. I watched the mourning doves this morning perching in the tree in the backyard. I digest the reality that my flood insurance will cost more than my homeowners because the house I’m about to buy is in a flood zone – what does that mean? It means it partially flooded during the 2005 Federal Flood – would it happen again?
The insurance agent kept forecasting all the disasters that could take place, and I just finally took a deep breath and said, “You know, we don’t know the future, I only know right now” and signed on the dotted line. The truth is that there are people going hungry today, there are people afraid for their lives today, there are parents dealing with special needs children, there is a war being waged somewhere right at this moment, a child is hungry and going to bed without food, a woman being raped, a diagnosis of cancer being reported to its victim.
My #secondworldproblems are trivial and trite in comparison – I live in abundance – now what might I do for you who are less fortunate than Rachel?