A few years back, when my Handsome Husband and I were only just en fianced, we lived in squander a dirty little San Diego house with two 21-year-old men boys. It was not quite the ghetto, but it certainly wasn't the suburbia I grew up in. It had a killer backyard though.
Evidence of aforementioned killer backyard.
We were all in college, with the three of them working on their bachelor's degree in various fields, and me in nursing school (we were quite the eclectic group actually, I think we had a nursing major, a political science major, pre-med and engineering majors). We came and went at different times, sometimes were out until 3am, and other times we never left the couch (oh college life). I was often the first one home in the afternoons as I was off of school at 3pm most days, and would head home, nap off my nursing school exhaustion and then get to studying while I waited for the boys to come home.
One Tuesday afternoon heading home after a long day of lectures of mental health or pressure ulcers or something, and while chatting with HH as I pulled into the driveway of our little house, I noticed our front door was wide open.
Here's the thing, for some people this might be an immediate red flag. But I was living with three 21-year-old boys. Something most 21-year-olds are not known for? Responsibility and reliability. Sorry, it's true. It wouldn't have been out of character for one of them to have left the door unlocked and for it to blow open during the day, or for one of them to actually be inside but have left their car elsewhere the previous night out.
So while I mentioned to HH the fact that the door was open (I might have prefaced that statement with a What the F), I went inside without hesitation, barely looked around, and headed straight back to our bedroom.
And that's when I saw it. All of my jewelry boxes that I kept so stealthly hidden in the drawer of my nightstand opened and strewn hastily all over my bed. I think I may have screamed into the phone when I realized our house had clearly been broken into. I ran outside, petrified that I had walked in mid-breakin and there may be someone still in the house, got off the phone with HH, and called 911.
It was the only time in my life I've ever called 911. Terrified, I told the operator what I had walked into, and then realized that there was no one coming out of the house, and that it was probably all clear. And that's when I made the biggest mistake that day. When the 911 operator asked me if I thought there was someone in the house, I was honest and said I didn't think so. And then it took six hours for an officer to come out to our house and take our report. Six hours of thinking about what had happened, six hours of not wanting to touch anything (they did end up taking fingerprints).
After hanging up with 911, I waited for HH to come home before I went inside. While I was fairly certain there was no one inside, I was shaking and scared, and waited in my car for him. We went in together, and tried to survey the damange.
It was hours (maybe even days) before we really realized all the things that went missing that day. But in the break-in we lost:
A brand-new (literally a week old) MacBook Pro
Brand-new, still in the box, subwoofers and amp for HH's car
A stereo system
An older laptop belonging to one of our roomates
A jar full of coins, probably valuing over $150
And I gained? A whole lot of anxiety.
Tune in next week when I talk more about how I grappled with getting back to real life after the break-in.
