Beggars Can’t be Choosers…Right?

A friend of mine has been asking me to tell her what I need since we have lost everything due to our mold issue. Then another friend did the same, and was trying to encourage me to put a list together of what my family needs. I felt completely vulnerable (still do) about expressing our needs, and over the last few days, I decided to actually make a list. When I first started the list, I got about part of the way through, and looked at how massive it was…got scared and deleted the post that I was working on. I felt foolish making this list because there is a part of me that still believes the old saying “Beggars Can’t be Choosers.” I grappled with the idea of creating a “wish list” registry that all our family and friends can view to cut down on my own personal awkwardness around explaining what we need, but plowed through those feelings and actually signed up at Amazon.com and created my “Wish List” there. I have been busy compiling my list, and as I do so, my stomach is twisted and turning in anxiety over actually picking things out that we need replaced for a new home. I feel gnawed to the core at the reality of the situation and filled with a sadness that we won’t be able to get all these things.

When my kids came home from school yesterday, they saw me compiling my list online and they wanted to be included in the process. Together we looked at the things they needed, and I could see this glimmer of hope and joy in their eyes, as if they were seeing some sort of relief, and I didn’t know how to explain that this is our “wish list” but it doesn’t mean that we are going to get everything right away.  I didn’t want their expectations to take over and in the end be even more crushed. We have lost everything, and we had to make some very difficult decisions for the sake of our health and well being not to take a single thing with us. We have been through this one time before, and it really doesn’t get any easier when if it happens again…especially with children. It hurts me to the core to need to get rid of all the things that they hold dear, but our health trumps all else in this case.

Another part of the dilemma I had with creating a list was having others look at that list and say “What? Do they really need that?” LOL To put a list out there is to open myself and my family up to the judgements of others. I found myself sitting at the computer, going through furniture, household items, exact items the children are upset about losing…like their computers, musical instruments, cell phones, video games, and other things that they may have gotten at Christmas or on their birthday and shrinking back from putting those things on the list and looking for cheaper items.

Our needs are so great, the list is extensive…and I haven’t even finished completing it. It will take me another day or two to finish it and then to post it for family and friends. I pray I have the strength to post it, and that for my family’s sake, I don’t back out at the last moment because I fear the judgement of others. I have even thought of posting the information to this blog site, but I haven’t made a decision yet about it.

We bumped up our move to December 12th because of the mold test results. We are renting a temporary home that is fully furnished until we find an area in New Mexico that we like and then ultimately find a home that we can settle into.