I was showing an oceanfront home renting for $15,000 a month to a prospective tenant.
The husband was a company executive. The wife had spent decades raising their four children, who were now grown. They were moving from another part of California to this beach community in San Diego to get ready for retirement.
As they walked slowly from room to room, talking about where they would place their furniture and how often their children might visit, I found myself quietly watching them.
A thought crossed my mind:
Rose, if you had married a man who could provide for you, would you still be working today?
The question caught me off guard.
I turned toward the ocean. My mind started racing backward through time.
Life would have been easier, of course. I might never have known what it feels like to be unable to pay the bills. I might never have worried about foreclosure. I might never have had to build a business from scratch. I might never have had to figure out how to care for an aging ex-husband with Alzheimer’s.
But then another question quietly appeared:
Do you regret becoming the woman you are today?
Back at Clark University in Massachusetts, on stormy winter nights, I trudged through the snow after waitressing at a restaurant. The wind cut through my thin jacket as I walked home in my waitress’s apron. I passed homeless people sleeping under blankets on the sidewalk. Sometimes I wondered if I would be next.
I spent many sleepless nights in my crummy apartment wondering how I was going to pay the rent and college tuition. Somehow, one day after another, I survived.
Then came 2018. My real estate business came to a screeching halt. No buyers. No sellers. My son’s college tuition was looming, and my aging mother needed additional care. My bank balance looked dismal. My back was against the wall.
I had to find another path.
Within three years, I built a property management business from scratch. Along the way, I discovered something I hadn’t known about myself: I was good at it.
I was especially good at managing luxury homes. My landlord clients trusted me. I learned that I was good at negotiating and resolving conflict. Until life forced me to use those abilities, I had no idea they were already inside me.
Then life took another turn.
My ex-husband, Mike, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s three years ago. Recently, his decline has become much faster than I expected. He has lived in my home for the past five years.
For a long time, the decline was gradual. Then came the past six months.
I screamed. I cried. I cursed. I felt trapped. Hopeless.
Alzheimer’s was taking Mike away one piece at a time. Some days, I felt it was taking pieces of me, too.
So I started to write. I needed a way out.
Words poured out almost as fast as my tears. Emotions thundered through my chest and landed on the page. And somewhere in all those words, I discovered something else I didn’t know was inside me:
I love to write.
As I locked the front door behind that couple, I thought again about the question I had asked myself:
Would my life have been easier if I had married a man who could provide for me?
Probably.
But would I trade away the woman all those difficult years had forced me to become? No.
And suddenly, I wasn’t wondering what my life might have been.
I was imagining who I still have time to become.
