The Guide I Needed When Everything Changed Overnight
For anyone who has money, options, and absolutely no roadmap for what to do with either.
She relaxed into the moody pink swivel chair in the corner of my room wearing clothes and a posture that screamed luxury and freedom.
I wanted both.
I wouldn’t wish a house fire on anyone, but I felt grateful to have her here. Someone who gets it. Someone five steps ahead.
It’s been 11 months since our fire, and I still have more questions than answers. For her, it’s been five years. She knows what’s coming next. I lean in to hear it.
She sets her coffee on the side table, shakes her head, and says: “First of all, I can’t believe you’re working already…”
She tells me she used $60,000 between her insurance payout and savings to rest after her fire. “Everyone raises their eyebrows when I share this,” she goes on, “but it wasn’t a big deal. Using that money didn’t change my life, and I can’t imagine saving it would have, either.”
Our actual budget flashes into my mind. I had carefully allocated every dollar after our fire to ensure we had it all covered: $10,000 for Patrick’s clothes, $10,00 for mine… a down payment… a few weeks pay so I could pause my business and handle insurance… the remainder in a general “joint personal” bucket for everything else we couldn’t think of in the moment.
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“And I got the car, too.” She nods to the luxury car I left pulled up on my computer screen. I smile, embarrassed.
“You’re allowed to get it, you know. And enjoy it.” She tilts her chin at me and squints her eyes, looking for agreement.
“We’re waiting to pay off Patrick’s car first,” I explain.
She nods, unsurprised. “I also updated the new home. I took a vacation on the anniversary of the fire to get away. I lost friends. I learned more about myself than I cared to know. And now I do amazing work, and I love it, but I didn’t know this is what I’d be doing 11 months after the fire. You’re in the thick of change right now. And frankly we both know you’re in the thick of grief, too. Ease up on yourself a little, hey?”
11 months after our fire, I sat in my office trying to make sense of everything our life had become over the past year. I looked at the moody pink chair and imagined her.
She didn’t exist. She never had.
A fictional woman who had unfortunately (fortunately) lost everything in a house fire.
A woman who also received a large insurance payout.
A woman who could answer all of the questions I was too afraid or shy to ask anywhere else.
I wanted her to be real. A future me. A guide. Someone who knew what I needed, what our family needed, what I was supposed to do with this responsibility.
I wanted her to look at me and say something corny like, “You have permission… That’s a lot. And not everyone’s going to get it. A lot of people are going to look at you and call you lucky when you feel anything but lucky. They’re going to see you driving this nice car with everything you ever said you wanted, and they’re not going to get it. But I get it.”
How comforting to imagine someone looking into my eyes with understanding I didn’t have to first explain.
“I get that you’re sad, but that doesn’t mean you can’t buy nice things and enjoy them, too. I get that you’re lost, because what do you do now? I get that you’re overwhelmed, because you think maybe you’re supposed to give it all away or change the world now, when really you just need to figure out how to spend today.”
I wish she’d hold my hand and say, “Go get the coffee. Plan the trip. Buy the thing. It won’t solve everything, and two years from now you might not care about it as much as you think you will, but you still get to do it.”
I wish she could tell me the rest will come in time: “You will give generously. You will help. You will build something meaningful again. But you don’t have to figure that all out now.”
11 months after our fire, I imagined this brief exchange as I sat alone in my office, and in a way it led me to you.
Because although no one sat in my office who understood…
Today I sit in yours. And I understand.
What do you need to hear from me? ..someone who gets it, someone who’s been there?
What do you wish someone had told you?
Perhaps that’s our clue for what we can already tell ourselves.