Oh Milwaukee don’t forget me
As the miles between us grow
Keep the maple tree carved
with the name of my love
The hills we would sled race down
Lake Michigan stay endless
and painted in sky Goodbye
~Vienna Teng, No Gringo

June 25, 2006. I should have realized how ill-prepared I was to become a homeowner, when I walked into the closing with a checkbook, ready to pay my down payment. My realtor stared at me. How was I to know, naive girl who was just starting my second paying job, that important business transactions like this required cashier’s checks, no personal checks with yellow background decorated with drawings of Curious George? I was hundreds of miles from my bank and overwhelmed. We figured out a compromise, I bought the house, signing my name to a hundred different pieces of paper. I couldn’t foresee the moment in February when I realized that I couldn’t afford my mortgage, student loans and heating bill. Or when I got letters from the post office stating that they would no longer deliver to me unless I plowed my walk for the 60th time that winter. Or the repeated swamping of the basement.

I grew up in that house. My mouth was stained pink from July onward from the raspberries. I cursed the squirrels that ran rampant through the yard. I lay in the enclosed backyard in the dark and strained at the city-bleached stars. Friends came over and perched on my couch or laughed in my kitchen. There was heartache and tears and laughter and hugs. It was imperfect, it was difficult, but it was home.

June 21, 2011. I walked through the empty rooms, imprinting the curve of the entryway, the perfect red-gray of the living room with the morning sun slanted through the windows. I kissed the doorway, pressed lips to the wooden frame that had held my dreams and my reality for the past 5 years, and turned the key for the last time. The house was going on the market that day and I was certain that somebody, somebody would fall in love as I had.

April 25, 2012. The end of three hundred and nine days of purgatory was anti-climatic. The designated time came and passed and an email arrived in my inbox, with the subject: Julia D******/Metcalf CLOSED. And just like that, I was no longer a homeowner.

I don’t think I can describe what this past year has been like. A constant tension thrumming under my skin. I haven’t had my phone ringer on for months, due to the incessant calls from my mortgage company – I never thought that I would be the person fearing that I’d hear from debt collector. The day that I got certified mail that stated that I was being pursued for foreclosure, that was a rough day. Every 10 days lowering the price again and again, fearful that the bank wouldn’t accept the final offer. I pinched pennies, worrying about the bank’s judgements of my spending habits. Even when I got an offer and then an acceptance, the fear didn’t lessen.

This isn’t a perfect happily ever after ending. The government views this sale as profit, even though I have lost so much, so I’ll be paying hefty taxes next year. My credit, while not ruined, has been damaged and will be damaged for the next few years. But it’s an ending and perhaps now, I can begin again.

Goodbye