Not About Finance

     I hesitate to call any of my financial decisions "mistakes". The fact is, I did it for love, I did it for me, I did it for youth - whatever - I had my reasons and they made perfect sense at the time. But you'll recall in my last post, I mentioned that marriage and divorce caused me to make choices that sanity and wisdom would frown upon. This brings me to my love of houses...
    I DO love a house. I frown on an apartments and ever since I was a little girl, I've loved the spaciousness and freedom of a house (more on this notion of  "freedom" later).  In any event, I purchased my first house at 24. I knew nothing about the home buying process but I was relatively sure of myself (most 24 year olds are) and confident that I was making a good financial decision. Fast forward four years...I'm married and divorcing, in debt and drowning and the world is looking pretty bleak.  So what do I do - go buy a house! (This would be a second house). Yes, this is a reasonable and rational decision to make in the throes of despair.  My mother likes to say that a hard head makes a soft behind. I have the hardest of heads but in my defense, I make all my choices/mistakes and decisions and I ride them until the wheels fall off. And so it was with my freedom house.
     Now that my drama is in the rear view, I can fully admit - my husband left me. He decided that the grass was greener and wanted to go check it out.  But not only did he leave me, but he left me in a very expensive apartment with a very LONG lease.  Looking back, I felt trapped and abandoned, but at the time, those emotions presented themselves as "pissed".  I was pissed at the situation, pissed at the man who put me in it and pissed at myself for being susceptible to such ridiculousness. I was far more indignant than I was actually "scorned" and I set out to prove that I wasn't trapped or abandoned - and so I bought a house.
   At this point, I'm sure you have noticed that this post isn't about finance.  It's all about me...and how I let my emotional state push me into a huge purchase.  In retrospect, the purchase itself wasn't the deal - I paid too much for a home that I loved with a decent interest rate. Given the status of my life (shambles) and my credit score (fading fast), it was a mediocre decision. The lesson here is that CRAZY (the pet name I gave myself at the time) will cause you to make rash decisions with permanent consequences. I didn't buy the house because I loved it (although I did). I bought that house because I had to prove to myself that I was free to do so; that I hadn't lost my bad-assness in the divorce.  So I proved it, and for better or worse, I had to live with that financial decision for MUCH longer than the marriage.