The cutest asshole I've ever known, Saxon.  He's very French.  

Those of us that don't have children of our own still have the need to have a little one around to take care of.  This little fella' was one of those "love at first sight" situations.  My former parter, Rob, and I had a rescue Bichon that fought a year long battle with lymphoma and after he crossed the rainbow bridge and a month of Rob crying every evening when he came home, it was clear another baby had to come into our lives.  That happened with a 4 month old little fur ball with the most bizarre personality I've ever experienced.  I never had a dog as a child - that just wasn't something that was thought of as a necessity for me.  Until you have one, I don't think you truly understand how important they are in your life.  

Saxon has been on my mind, every day, for months now.  After a difficult separation and eventual break-up with Rob, Saxon now lives with him in Fayetteville, AR.  

I've lost a lot in the past 10 months.  For 8 years I had what I thought was a stable relationship with a person of extreme value in my life.  He was/is very successful.  Like one of my aunt's would say "they have a nice house and have nice cars" but there was more to the connection I though we had.  I had security for the first time in my life.  I grew up an only child of a single parent that was an only child and princess herself.  There was no doubt that my mother loved me but when it came to who matters most, she would always choose herself before anyone else.  I didn't have support on ventures I wanted to explore because they were combatted with jealousy on her part on the things I did and experienced.  I really was expected to live in the same small town I grew up in and work for a business and stifle my dreams so I could take care of family.  I do support those I love but I can't suppress myself.  I was meant to do exactly what I'm doing right now - live with enough means to survive and save 10% for the future.  Even though I didn't get a lot of support I did gain the knowledge that I need to survive independently and after that everything just falls into place.  It's not all sad if you don't want it to be.

Rob and I had a good run.  I took care of my own expenses and he took care of the rest.  We traveled and I followed him on most of his business trips to New York and Los Angeles when I could and that was usually every other month.  We didn't keep score of who did what but the balance of him paying the mortgage and utilities while I maintained the house and property actually made both of us happy.  Our views did differ on overspending.  He was given everything he wanted during his formative years so there was a disconnect on his stance of "I want it now" and my "lets work towards this together".  We did agree on the house we lived in for the last 4 years.  4424 N Hall St.  A storybook English cottage style home built in 1922.  After selling our first hime we rented for a year looking for the right place to call our forever home.  The area in Oak Lawn known as Perry Heights was a favorite area of mine and Rob was smitten with its convenient location and the house checked off everything we both wanted.  Two stories, 3 bedrooms, a delightful sunroom, a pool, a 1,000 square foot garage big enough for both cars and storage for my junk business.  And the kitchen had been remodeled in the place of what was the kitchen, breakfast room, and laundry porch.  HEAVEN.  Miles of counter space and professional grade appliances.  I didn't mind pouring my heart and sweat into every detail of small restoration projects, painting, furnishing, and ultimately research on the property itself.  Zero amount of pretension was involved in living in this home, it was was where my heart was.  A family with Rob and Saxon inside my idea of the perfect manageable property and great neighbors was just gravy on the biscuit.

We swapped out 3 different sofas before the perfect one was found.  Two sets of everyday china until I found one that really fit the house.  My little baby grand piano was ALMOST too big for the living room but it was perfect and commanded to be played which I did pretty much everyday.  I'm no Liberace but I can play from a fake book with the best of them using just chords and right had movements.   The house seemed to demand togetherness and music from the first time I walked through the door.  Some places just have a certain spirit.  Every dinner party was always effortless and perfect.  Cocktail hours were a favorite of everyone because you could be inside or out with the perfect entertainment flow as long as you didn't have more than 20 people at a time...even though sometimes there were.  I don't know how to tell you how good it feels when friends you love ask if you'll host their party.  Being together with the people you love really is the best thing of all.

2 years ago for Rob's  Christmas present, I did a complete history of all the owners of 4424.  A friend of mine at a title company helped me fish through the chain of title and that mixed with my previous mortgage underwriting experience we went all the way back to the parcel of land that was developed by E. Gordon Perry, that Perry Heights was named for, the construction, first owners all the way through Rob.  Along the way I sleuthed enough to find a daughter of one of the owners that lived there between 1945 and 1955.  This was the most exciting thing.  Her name is Terry Leahy Jenkins and her professional name was Terry Lea.  She began her singing career as a performer with the USO and then on the syndicated WFAA show, The Earlybirds.  After she started her own family she didn't have time for radio work any longer but did find her niche as a jingle vocalist for PAMS in Dallas.  I found a tremendous amount of information in the DMN archives on her and her life and even found on YouTube some of the jingles - one was a song I recognized from when I lived in Little Rock, AR.                    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkFL1i76JsI   - Copy/paste and listen.  

But, what brought tears to my eyes was finding out she was still alive.  I found her phone number and called her:  "Hello".  Is this Mrs. Terry Jenkins?  "It is".  This is J.R. Brown and I wondered if you had a few minutes to talk.  "It depends about what". I live at 4424 N. Hall St here in Dallas.  "OH, MY.  How fascinating.  I used to live there with my parents".  We talked for over an hour.  Her father would play the piano every night after dinner while Terry and her mother would sing and wash the dishes.  I even found several promotional 45's on eBay and gave to Rob with his present of the lineage of the house and for his birthday the next year I had framed the original real estate listing for the house.  This was a crazy lucky find because it actually mentioned the address which was not something most ads included that long ago.  And as a present to myself, I bought a sketch rendering of E. Gordon Perry himself.  It was a token of appreciation from his employees at his Dodge dealership (the first one in Texas) in 1927.  A friend of mine in Little Rock sent me a text photo while at an estate sale and asked if the guy was anything to do with our neighborhood.  It in fact was and the man himself.  I still have it.

Rob has a impulsive personality.  He got into big financial trouble gambling online and by the time I found out about it it was so bad that there was only one option to relieve the debt.  He had to refinance the house and use the equity to pay off sky high interest credit cards and personal loans.  It was almost the breaking point but I couldn't just walk away from 7 years with someone and if I really cared I'd help him.  So I did. For the first time money was tight but we had a plan and in 6 years this would all financially be behind us. A short time later he was fired from his job (but this was a good thing) and got a year's severance and a final stock payout from JCP.  We planned to use what was left to pay off the second mortgage after he got a job.  5 months went by and finally an offer, from Wal-Mart.  In the interim I'd started working full time for a design showroom for a friend and obligated myself to 1 year of employment for the sizable amount she was paying me.  After seeing how much money we DIDN'T have, I realized I needed to have a nest egg of my own for real emergencies and not just for savings alone.  Rob had to move to Fayetteville but luckily he'd gotten a large signing bonus and with the left over money in his severance and my income, we could keep the house and pay off the second mortgage.  Except, Rob had continued to gamble and had spent about 1/2 of the severance money.  He then leaped on the first house he saw to rent in Fayetteville even though it was too big and too expensive.  I had no say in this and was left out of all decisions associated with the move.  There was no plan that was followed on his part.  He had to have the small amount of equity that was left in the house to pay down more debt that was incurred and the absence of the mortgage payment would pay off the rest in a year.  I reluctantly went along with this even though I begged to let me stay in our home and I could pay for the mortgage myself. We didn't know if he'd like it in Arkansas and the Corona Virus was just gaining attention.  I told him he might want to have options if they were to close down the corporate offices - which they did 3 weeks after he started work.

 It was my home, too.  But, since the house was only in his name the fate was sealed.  He moved and I was left to get the house ready to put on the market.  I had 2 weeks to finish a project in a bedroom upstairs where I'd striped all the woodwork and repaint the entire room.  I planted some flowers and ended up painting the entire upstairs and fluffed the empty bedrooms where he'd taken furniture to Arkansas.  The house went on the market and sold in a week.  I'd spent so much time getting it ready that I didn't focus enough on where I'd go.  The closing was moved up two weeks and I had 2 weeks to find a new place to live and pack to move out of my home.  I took a leap that I now regret and moved into the spare room with my across the street neighbor.  Conveniently, she went to Colorado to stay with her ailing parents and this was during the early stages of the pandemic so she could work from anywhere.  Sadly, I realized how much other neighbors and her friends just welcomed themselves to her house and pool and it was impossible to stay there with nightly drunken parties and people riffling through my things while I was at work.  

In late February I was in an automobile accident and unfortunately my truck was totaled and I really hurt my back.  The nightmare of dealing with insurance companies to get the full value of my vehicle, work 6 days a week, and go to physical therapy 3 times a week really took its toll on me.  When they finally decided to 100% total my truck I had 24 hours to buy a new ride.  I bought a decent 2 year old sedan but it wasn't what I wanted - hell, I don't even like the car.  But, I bought what I could afford from what was available and moved on.  

I did find a duplex and while Rob and I were still trying to fix things in our relationship I reluctantly rented a place with his pledge to supplement the rent with $1,000 a month.  As it turned out his ability to do that was because he'd threatened a wrongful termination lawsuit with JCP and they gave him a six figure "go away" settlement.  This was also during the time that I was getting the house on the market...this would have paid off the second mortgage and I could have stayed in the house with that missing expense.  But, with that money, Rob bought a new very expensive SUV and surprised me with the news and then lied about how much it was and also how much the payment was as well as it bought it already upside down because he owed more on his trade-in that it was worth - and that SUV was not even a year old.  The straw that did finally break the camel's back was when he mentioned making an offer on a house in Fayetteville.  I told him if he bought this house after forcing me out of the one we had that we were not going to continue our relationship and he was still in his option period so it was possible.  But, he bought the house.  

The hardest thing I ever have had to do in my life was to sever ties with the one person I really unconditionally loved.  I had to realize that there was no consideration for me, my feelings, or my needs.  His instant gratifications were more important than building a life together.  That's hard to realize and even harder to accept.

This isn't the first time that I've had to dust myself off and try again but it is the hardest by far.  I saw my "friends" that were my neighbors for who they really were and removed myself from that toxic situation. I'd also agreed for Rob to take our little puppy boy to AR with him because he was up there alone and needed some company.  Funny, isn't it?  How having so much consideration for someone can leave you with nothing for yourself?

I've lost a lot this year.  The pandemic didn't help.  

I did have an opportunity to join an acting group and I took it.  I was in a toxic place in the job I had that wasn't my passion to begin with so I made up my mind to leave that to explore what really makes me happy and had been my #2 focus all along.  My acting career.  I had the opportunity to buy a different car, one I REALLY like at a cash price so I'm in the process of selling the sedan I don't want and will not have that payment every month.  This makes me happy.

I thought I'd be farther along at 40 but every day I'm further than I was the day before.  I'm still here.  I'm going to make it.  I have to - and I will.