Friday Flashback – Honda Passport

In 2007, when the economy crashed, I had a one year old daughter, and an awesome husband and a pending bankruptcy. Well, I didn’t have the bankruptcy, my husband did – but it was practically the same thing. We had began a business right before the economy took a nose dive, a organic carpet cleaning business. Organic products were just beginning to come into their own and we were busy automatically. Life was good, we could see a future in front of us.

And then the stock market crashed, and people stopped calling, everything went under. We lost the business and we were forced to declare bankruptcy. The three of us moved into my mom’s tiny two bedroom house with her, my husband left out of state to get any work he could. We bought a brand new car (ok, a new-used car) – a Honda passport – and things were looking up.

My husband finally got a job locally, at a brokerage house, and we moved out of my moms into a beautiful apartment right next to his work.

Life was good! We had pulled through a bad spot rather quickly and come out on top. I had no complaints…

I will always remember the day my husband came home early, the look of dejection on his face, the way his shoulders sagged. Three months into the perfect job and he had been laid off, once again a casualty of the ‘recession’.

It happened so fast I still can’t believe it. My Husband got any crude job he could, I was back to work by the end of the day. But it still wasn’t enough, and two months later we were moving out of our big, nice apartment and into the back of that new-used Honda Passport.

You never know when things will change. When nice apartments become bolts in your back, and happy children will look at you with so much confusion that you don’t know what to say anymore. You just shrug and look away. Hoping that some day you will be able to provide better, some day you will rise above.

We clawed our way out of the car and into the tiny bedroom of a friend who was willing to shelter us for a bit. We moved from a 4X5 foot back seat, to a 12×8 room. But, strangely, we were the happiest we have ever been.

There, with nothing to look forward to but hard work, with nothing to our name but what we could fit in a box. It’s strange the things that make an impact, make you stronger. Living like that, taught me something. It brought a deep compassion into me that will always be there, a willingness to help others. But more then that, it taught me to value what I have. So, even though my computer keeps breaking down, and I have a hole in my sock; I am beyond grateful that my cabinets are full of food, and that I have in my hands the ability to change someones life for the better.

Its strange how much like a phoenix your life really can be.

If you let it.