After a lifetime of working full-time and raising children as a single parent in an affluent area of Northern California, in 2005 I made the move to a small waterfont town in the California Delta to live out my dreams. As an avid water skier, boater and water lover, this destination put me right on the water and kept me close to my hometown. I moved into a beautiful waterfront home with a man I dearly loved.

I bought a building in partnership with my manfriend on the main street of a quaint little town that had promise to be a charming Delta waterfront Sausalito. I remodeled the property with the unique finishes of a combination of Tuscan and Japanese architecture in this historic area of the town, opened an art gallery featuring local artists, and became very involved in local politics and service groups. I promoted the arts throughout the Delta, wrote columns in a major local newspaper and magazine, and became entrenched with the local art community and the business community as well, primarily vintners. This was supposed to be the good life dreams are made of.

Early on in this venture I ended the relationship with my manfriend. During this tremendously traumatic breakup, I bought a waterfront home in an area I always wanted to live and for the first time in my adult life I was living alone. I cried. The house needed a lot of work and I did a majority of it myself.

I carried out all the duties of proprietor of the Gallery and promoted the arts and saw the gradual demise of the economy impact business and interest. Since everything I did for the arts was philanthropic and I had poured money into this venture and my home, I realized I needed to go back to work. I cried. I’m a Realtor.

So, I aligned myself with a brokerage and went back to work, realizing it was a challenging market, but I had always been tremendously successful and I had built a strong presence and network. Certainly now I could say the rest is history, just use your imagination, but I need to add that not only was this the worst possible time to get back into the business, but I spent a lot of money doing so. I decided to create a whole new image for the Delta; I marketed it as the Delta Wine Country. Putting time and money into this campaign had the impact I had intended. I acquired numerous listings and elevated interest in Delta properties through the romance of being wine country. The problem was that nothing was selling. I spent many hours and was still chipping away at my savings, and nothing was selling. Plus, I was working the Gallery. Something had to give.

After a four hour bath with candles, a bottle of wine, show tunes, and a steady stream of tears, I made the decision to close the Gallery. My dream died along with some of my spirit, but there was no choice financially. Closing the Gallery was drawn out, tedious and heart-wrenching, and of course many people expressed their disappointment over the loss.

Not ready to give it up completely, I kept the Gallery alive in another capacity by exhibiting at a beautiful winery venue for a year in hopes of at least breaking even on my expenses and time spent on the effort. I had a wonderful time promoting the arts through this venue. But it drained me of valuable time I needed to make an income. So, I pulled out of the winery. I cried.

Throughout all this there have been deaths of friends and family member very dear to me and the demise of personal relationships with two men that I had hoped for something meaningful. There have been ongoing legal matters over the investment with the ex-manfriend/partner in the Main Street property which remains unresolved and tying up my investment funds. And now, after another year of struggling to make ends meet in a barren real estate market, I am financially destitute. I am losing everything. I cannot refinance my home (bought at top dollar), so I am hoping to sell it for pennies on the dollar. I have to reinvent myself in a new career at this time in my life. And, the best strategy I can figure out at this point is to go back home to the charming Victorian in the historic downtown neighborhood but to rent for the first time since I was 22 years old. Not to a successful career in real estate but to the unknown. And the stress has been so intense that I recently had a little heart attack, yes a heart attack—something more to add to the pressure.

I have always subscribed to the theory that with hard work, sincere intent, and a positive outlook your dreams come true. I don’t accept failure and look to myself first; how could I do this differently, what did I miss? Then with some adjustments, things have always had a way of working out.

Not so in today’s world. It is uncomfortable to be victimized by today’s state of the economy. At a time in my life that I thought I had learned to curb my propensity to push too hard and to cherish and respect the truly meaningful things life has to offer, I find myself incapable of accepting these setbacks. I am working on it but have ground to cover. Meanwhile, it can be difficult to muster up the energy to rise from bed let alone to the occasion.

Realizing goals through visualization/positive thinking/living your goals used to work well now I feel undermined by today’s twists on logic. What a bad joke.

On a positive note, I will not give up. Now is the time to embrace the adage that the truly successful are those who adapt to change. It would be remiss to suggest that loss is simply change, and I have lost a lot over these four years. But I have found it less overwhelming to place my losses in the category of change when I strategize to adapt.