Nobody Wants You: Welcome to Bad Credit

My first memory of credit problems goes something like this: I'm sitting on the floor of our house on the water, with the pool. This was probably third grade, because that's when the shit hit the fan. My dad got laid off, and the five of us were suddenly luxury living -- boat, wave runner, Cadillac -- on my mom's not-so-luxury teacher's salary.

We would not recover from the crisis until about 10 years later.

I'm watching my big, strong dad on the phone. Mean people have been calling, asking for my parents. My dad is talking to somebody, and by now I know things are really not good. He's on the phone, and I hear him say, "Yes...please."

He says it in a voice no father would want their daughter to hear, soft and vulnerable. Even I could sense the desperation.

Credit followed us wherever we went. I knew my family had bad credit before I really knew what bad credit was. Now I know that credit is a score in the game of how the world sees you. It's a label that determines how people treat you. It's a label that makes it hard to remember who you are.

"Do you see how these credit card company screw you?" my mom would say later, once she learned to read the fine print. She would bring me over a credit card application, line her manicured fingernail up to the tiny text. "See the interest you have to pay if you have bad credit, or miss just one payment?" It was over 20%.

I swore to myself I would not be one of those people, someone embarrassed any time a credit check was mentioned. And I wasn't, I paid my bills on time. Keeping my credit score up was one of the few financial things I did right. This was up until three months ago, when I stopped paying my mortgage and began the short sale process.

Now, my boyfriend and I are trying to get the apartment of our good friends who are moving. He just talked to their landlord. To her, it doesn't matter that her tenants have known us for 15 years. It doesn't matter that for the first 10 years of my adult life, I had great credit. It doesn't matter that I was in the Peace Corps or that my boyfriend makes four times the rent by himself every month. It doesn't matter that I'm one of thousands of people whose houses got slashed in value by half. That number that is us, that score, well it's now standing in the way of a life I want.

Also, I got another denial from the credit card company, Chase. I won't try again. I get it, I'm on my own. Maybe it will be good for me.