Contract Blew Up For A Myriad Of Reasons

Late last week, a contract blew up for a myriad of reasons. I busted my ass to keep this thing together but ultimately, when the parties seem to have less motivation to complete the transaction than I do, it’s useless. I help people find houses. I can’t help them pay for the houses too. Lots of wasted time. That’s become my new pet peeve. I hate people wasting my time.

It’s no secret what I do is sales. I sell things, namely, real estate. Despite the fact that I have a heart and a conscience, and I don’t ever talk people into such a huge purchase and operate on the very conservative side of the industry, I still have goals for myself each year. The goals land somewhere on the following continuum:

Make enough to pay the bills.

Make enough to pay the bills and also keep Amazon in business.

Make enough to pay the bills, keep Amazon in business and stuff a good bit of money away for the girls college fund.

I was heading toward goal 3 this year when this contract blew up. As I was lamenting that this would derail me from the “college fund” goal, something happened that made me stop caring faster than the force of whiplash.

My long term ex-boyfriend from my 20’s and I are on great terms and it’s very amicable. He’s married with two girls, I’m married with two girls. He brought Sammy and Thora into my life and ignited my love not just for dogs, but for stumpy low riding dogs. We were together 6 years and until we crashed and burned, it was mostly great. Many years later, he came here with one of his daughters and stayed at our house. He’s such a genuine, sweet soul who doesn’t have a mean or selfish bone in his body.

We were in Hershey this past weekend. Saturday night when the girls finally fell asleep, I was listening to a podcast and something I heard reminded me of my him. I leaned over to pick up my phone and in the dark I navigated to Facebook to see what he had been up to. I recalled he posted something funny the day prior about Jeffrey Epstein that I wanted to read. But that’s not what was on his wall anymore.

His friend, the one who actually came to fetch me out of New York with the moving truck to move my crap to Atlanta way back in the 90’s, left a message on my ex-boyfriend’s wall. My stomach dropped, because I knew from what I read that something wasn’t right. Like, at all. His friend was writing condolences.

I texted my ex and said to please check in. I navigated to his mom’s Facebook page which was no longer online. Then to his grandmother’s page, and I started to get more info – someone was hurt very badly. There was a reference to prayers being sent to heaven. I got a really bad feeling.

It was a sleepless night. I woke up 4 times to check my phone. Nothing. Finally at 9 a.m. I got news.

My ex-boyfriend’s 2 year old daughter, the spitting image of him with giant blue eyes and the sweetest smile you have ever seen, did not wake up on Saturday morning.

Real Estate Dad saw my face and said, “Are you okay? Did someone die?”

Yes. Someone died. Someone I love dearly lost someone they love dearly and suddenly, nothing matters anymore. She wasn’t sick. This wasn’t a freak car accident. She didn’t have a disease. Her parents put her to bed on Friday night and they never once for a second thought they wouldn’t see her smile again on Saturday morning.

It’s been a rough couple days. I went on a field trip today with Princess Roundhead’s class and I didn’t check my work email once. Someone wanted to see a house. Someone else needed something. The emails piled up and three days ago I’d be pounding away at those messages, but three days ago I was a different person than I apparently am today.

Because today I don’t care. I may start to care again tomorrow…or Wednesday. But today, I don’t care.

Because today, when I talked to my ex’s mama, she said, “Hug those girls and hold them tight because you just never know.”

And that thought is positively terrifying.

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