I stopped by the apartment complex this morning just as they opened for the day. Two packages of homemade cookies from my mom in California were waiting to be picked up since yesterday. As I left, I asked the leasing guy if they had decided on a deal for letting us out of our lease a month earlier without the need to pay.

'No, we just can't do that' was his reply. To which I stated 'Well, I gotta do what I gotta do' before walking out the door with my two Priority Mail boxes which I put in the back of the minivan and drove off to work. I was referring to my posting my review of their complex on Yelp.

We asked several times about the possibility of management letting us out of our lease earlier. We begged and pleaded. We even tried posting on the community board of the apartment complex about if anyone else has experienced issues like ours but our comment was rejected by management. It was not posted.

Since it would end up costing us more to break the lease than to finish off the remaining three months, we gave our 60-day notice and now pay two rents for close to three months. Our furniture is here at the apartment whilst boxes from the garage and other items we do not need are making their way to the house.

It was not our desire to move so soon. Though we had been looking at large homes to rent, we had not planned on moving until early spring when our lease would be finished. However, legal circumstances warranted us to move sooner.

We moved back to a more affordable area. The area we lived before. But we have still not moved the furniture. After this morning's confirmation of no deal, we can wait to move the furniture for a few weeks. This way we can rely on the bus for the younger two whilst the oldest walks across the street to the middle school.

This is not an ideal situation in any sense and especially right before Christmas. We have been living in survival mode for over three years since the divorce and I was hoping to have some kind of peace for us all this year. But we are thankful to have each other despite the chaos of our lives at the moment.