Made the offer

We're trying to get into contract. I can't say that I'm hysterical or even panicked. I'm in a place of mindfulness, rather. Mindfulness in action.

Sure, trying to buy a house in the Bay Area is a lesson in perserverance and faith. Even if I end up with nothing tangible, and we have to go live with my friend Joe in a tent pitched on his lawn, I still have this lesson: that I went through one of the most stressful experiences possible, and enjoyed it.

How can I enjoy finding out that my credit score keeps me out of a house? How can I enjoy finding out that our income is in that awful space between below median and not poor enough to qualify for help? I don't enjoy this information, honestly. However I do lovingly appreciate and cherish the people I'm meeting, these experts in their fields. They are calm and secure, invigorated by what they do.

I practice mindfulness when one family member or another loses their inner war with the stress of all this, and I get to sit with them and abide in their dark with them until we come out the other side, still broken, but with new courage and a stronger bond.

It's the process, the growth, the experiences that surround this event, that I am attuned to in grace and appreciation. I'm in the flow with all this. I feel... secure, even though the storm rages.

And I still have to find a $30,000 private loan so the financing will go through. That's the conversation I'm having with relatives and friends. I'm trying to find someone who understands that for 20 years and many multiple jumps in real estate values I've been renting, and I'm tired of trying to make it out of this situation on my own. I have no pride left in paying rent. I'm asking for help, and if someone helps, I can reward them greatly.

But I hope that if someone does have money to help, they help mostly because they want to enable this dream, of taking an underused giant home and making it work in the urban landscape better. I'd be less interested in borrowing from someone who only saw dollar signs for themselves.