In the deep

In the deep of what? Shouldn’t that be in the depths? I have to bake a cake for my son’s birthday today so I run to target to get a few things. While wondering down the isles, which is what one does at target I thought to myself about the depths of this stuff we are in. I thought about the deepness of the wounds and how long it will take them to heal. I have thought about when my children get older and what they will say about this time in their lives and what they think of us as adults vs. how they think of us now when they are still kids. They have to go through a grieving process as well, just like us. They are angry and disappointed in us. We have always encouraged them and never let them quit anything and we considered the business our third child. Maybe we shouldn’t have called it that, but hind sight. Anyways, I digress. Let’s go back, this will be a longer post and a deeper post and it will encompass all the pain, all the trauma, and all the regular life along the way. We can start back to a year ago at this exact time…

Let’s go back to March of 2018. The business just came off of our busiest holiday in February. We had minimal staff but those we had were great. We were exhausted. He never let his corporate job. He had more work to do with his job than ever before. The store was not bringing in enough to cover all the bills. We flipped and flopped and talked about our decision and ended up listing it in early summer. We went without the sign for about a month to just avoid the questions because we were having a hard time about this in our hearts. We were in no shape to deal with questions. The sign went up and they came. We told people we weren’t really sure what the future would hold but we needed to sell the building. I am not sure we even knew at that point what was even going to happen. We couldn’t afford another build out somewhere and lease. Build outs are at least twenty grand because of the grease trap and plumbing. Doing this in our home was not an option, not enough room and we have pets. Time went on and the real estate agent at this point was moderately okay.

Just before we listed the property we found out that our Catahoula dog had spleen cancer. Let me tell you, this was a blow. What could we do for her. Nothing but meds for comfort. Make sure she took it easy because any kind of bump to her spleen area could cause it to bruise and she could bleed out. I remember going home one day after work soon after her diagnosis. She loved the deck off the pool. She would just lay there as long as she could and soak up the sun. She loved the heat. She was a dog form Louisiana of course she would. She was a rescue. She ended up in northern New York where there was snow and wore big pink sweaters in the winter. Okay, so I left work early to go home and just take as many pictures of her as I could. I wanted to preserve her magic. She was pure magic. There is no explanation other than that. She gave hugs to you when you needed them, she made you laugh when you needed it. She was the Mama bear of our home. She loved our cats particularly this white one we had. We kept up with her meds and she would have good days and bad days. When the bad days would come as time progressed they would get worse and longer. She was losing weight in the early fall. Turning white all over her face, which my husband calls “shugah face”. We were into the month of October and she hadn’t wanted to go out in the morning before I left for work. That whole week previous I would tell her every morning before I left how much she meant to us all. I felt like leaving this particular morning when she didn’t want to go out was not a good idea and I worried deeply what the situation might be if I left and my kids were the first ones home. I dreaded that happening for quite sometime and actually talked to the dog about that and not letting that happen. She listened. I knew that was the day. My husband knew that was the day. We talked and cried about it a few times that morning. When you have a small business, you have to go run it. So I left. I felt terrible. I called my Dad to see if he would go over and just be with her. We decided to close the shop early that day and posted a note and let the social media outlets know we wouldn’t be open after lunch time. I got home before the kids. Called the vet to set up the appointment was told to come at 6 pm. We explained to the kids when they got home. Everyone spent their own time with her and took pictures and many tears were shed. She was our Mama bear. She was our unicorn. Our doggy glue. The worst day of owning a pet is this day. While I sit here trying to type through my tears my grief for her is deep, feels like that day in my heart sometimes everyday. So our days were sad, for quite sometime after this day. They continue to be laced with the feeling of her being gone, but it’s not as strong. Although, We would all do anything to “hug” her again. She would lean in and put her head on your chest, as if she was trying to just take away all your worries. In November we got an offer on the business and the building, two different sales and two different people. The offers combined were low and left us in considerable debt. We planned on staying open through Christmas but wanted to close shortly after that as we thought we would be closing on the sales. November came and went. I don’t even remember Thanksgiving. I sit here typing, cello suites are playing next to me, my palo santo wood has been burning all day because it calms my nerves. What did we do on Thanksgiving. Clearly I have some small damage in my gray matter. Anyways…during this time we tried to make a few counter offers on the building offer which had come in at such a low rate it was nearly offensive. I also need to tell you that as of right now being a “dual agent” is not against the law in the state where I live but should be banned. So yes the agent that I hired asked if he could be dual and represent the person making an offer…in theory it sounds like it might work, in reality it is not possible. Never agree to this ridiculousness. We countered a bunch of times, they kept saying no. We were now into the moth of December approaching Christmas, short staff, burnt out and tired. All this time we were counter offering we were trying to hold the sale of the business and it’s equipment together. They actually wanted their stuff right after Christmas and we were not in the position to sell one without the other. This was a delicate dance that was made even more delicate by the lack of integrity and compassion by the agent. Finally the buyer withdrew the offer and said when we are serious about selling they would be interested in buying it, we tried one more counter with a few thousand dollars and were met with some nasty email that was forwarded by the agent about the buyer and her large lawyer bills for this and how she is trying to run a business and raise kids. Hey (I raise my hand) I am literally doing the same thing, and lawyers are not free and never were. This storm was about to get messier, except I didn’t think that was possible. We needed a break. We asked to meet again after the holidays and readdress the whole situation. We met January second. This would begin a wild roller coaster ride that we couldn’t get off of and we are still on

We speak about the potential buyers that have been through. We speak about the offer that got retracted. We speak of the entire corner being sold that we are on which with us would be three parcels. We are told he has been working on selling the whole corner. In fact maybe the neighbor behind you would like to own your property and the house that’s adjacent because he already own the other property directly on the corner. (Except in my mind I recall up moving in having a chat with some people in the corner property and where they are from, not around here. I brushed it off momentarily.) There was a party that spent a few hours in the spot. I was told for art. I was told they were serious about making an offer. He would try to contact them again. He said he had been trying but they were not returning phone calls or emails. Okay and then we had the low offer still sort of on the table. I got him to agree to a much lesser commission.

Being the persistent human I am I decided to do my own thing behind the scenes. I contacted the people who had spent hours in our listing, who had seemed so interested in our spot and they were going to put an offer in. I contacted them. To my deepest surprise, I got a prompt and nice response. Once I had a few emails back and forth with them I realized this was a huge loss of a deal. The garage was outfitted for what they are looking for and they could use the main building for the other part of their business. It had nothing to do with art. I wondered if they told the agent art and me something else? But I also thought they told him the non art business and he didn’t want complications. This was such a disaster. So now it’s a few weeks into January…we need to sell the building because the equipment people are getting antsy, I mean antsy. At this point the only offer we sort of had was the low ball one from back in November. So starts the chaos of even getting a written offer and getting it signed. All kinds of forwarded emails and texts from the buyer that were mean and harassing like, all forwarded from the agent who was acting as a dual agent but also supposed to representing us. Terrible. I asked several times for him to not forward these kind of messages to me. He disregarded those requests. The offer came late January everyone signed it and the buyer went to get financing February 1st. You must be wondering if this is done, you must be thinking we closed on this and we are moving on with our renovations on life…nope.

It got more ridiculous and they asked for all kinds of proof that it was zoned commercial and what we could and couldn’t do on the property. So much craziness that they got the codes officer involved. He had to write letters stating we were zoned commercial and what we were doing there was allowed and what our renters were doing there was allowed. Four letters later was not enough. We got an email from the agent a few weeks ago that “he” was meeting the codes officer at the property. I got in touch with the codes man to find out if he knew why, he did not. Then when I arrive to shovel the walkways that Friday early before the meeting, the potential buyer is in the parking lot. This agent is the worst? I was told to get a CO2 detector. Okay, I can do that. He said he can’t provide much more than he already has with the four letters and doesn’t have any more time to put into this. So the agent and buyer come in through the front door and say hello to the codes officer and the agent instructs her to go ahead and ask her questions. Waste of everyone’s time. She asked literally if she could run her business in the building. The whole thing is a circus. It’s almost done. We are closing on Monday, with the same f*ing deal we got back in November. The interest we have accrued over the past few months is astronomical. A family member has offered to pay our legal fees. We are going to be in thousands of dollars of debt after Monday.

Did I mention I was sick Back in November- January. So sick I couldn’t eat anything. Sick from stress. Now I just have panic and anxiety, none of which I have had before so I hate that. It’s a terrible feeling to walk into Marshall’s to return something and panic walking through the door. This happened the other day. I couldn’t breathe, I saw all these people and they seemed to be swirling about, and the NOISE. I was drowning in noise. Except it was a regular old day at Marshall’s. My insides were out of control, I was off balance. I should’ve turned around and went back to the car or back home. I was given medication so I could sleep at night. I am an all natural girl so using this medication to me is, well, bleh. I do not like contaminating my body with things like that, but there are times when I cannot shut my head down. Sometimes it doesn’t even make sense, it seems like it’s going to explode. Sometimes when I go to bed and close my eyes it’s not dark. It’s like someone is shining a bright light right over my head. That freaks me out. I am in a dark room. Why is my body behaving this way? I open my eyes and look around, I see darkness and I pray I see no light when I close my eyes, I just want to sleep.

(This post, took me about a week to write because of life and it’s chaos and finding a quiet moment. Here is an outline of the last few months around here…I forgot to mention the dog and the cat in February so I will elaborate…)

I February we decided to try to adopt another dog. We knew the business was winding down and IT would give us something else to focus on. We brought home this beautifully sweet dog. She was great, we had her for about a month. She was fine with our other dogs, quite submissive actually. She was fine with the cats. My husband had come home one Tuesday having had a terrible day at work. Our daughter was working. We decided to go out to dinner where she worked. It was so nice, we got to sit with her and it really turned the day around. We weren’t gone that long, maybe an hour. We came home and our son was the first one into the dining room and told us to come in there quick something was really wrong with Alice. That was the cats name. My husband shrieked. I did the same and we all began crying and we were all in such shock. None of us knew what to do. She was gone. She was my precious cat, my husband had bought her for me. She was gone. This is a trauma that the wounds are deep and still fresh. I feel like I failed my son because he was the first to see it. He was in shock later that night. I am not sure how were got through that night or the next day, it’s a blur. We are all still fragile from this loss and the circumstances of it.

I. decide to put business and building up for sale. II. find out your dog has cancer. III. put said business and building on market. IV. got a low offer. V. get very sick. VI. say goodbye to sick dog you love with all your heart. VII. take the low offer and see how we are going to make it work. VIII. deal with crazy realtor and buyer. IX. try to adopt a dog. X. that dog kills your favorite cat. XII. go out to dinner with family and come home to your favorite cat dead. XIII.Take the dog back to the shelter. XIV. try to get the real estate deal closed, bleeding money. XV. husband laid off.

Yep, you read that right, my husband got laid off this past Friday.