Kim Pace (aka Casey) ~ Writing Again

I haven't posted in awhile.  I want to get back to writing.  I am going to start a new blog because I want a clean, fresh palette.  I want to write under my own name, Kim Pace, and not a nickname or pseudonym anymore.  I will cross post here for a little while....

October 19, 2015
My Life in a Little Black Box

 
Panic is the best way to describe the feeling I had today when I reached for my handbag and it wasn’t there.  I had just returned home from a lovely girlfriend’s weekend in Healdsburg when I discovered its absence.  In the hustle and bustle of getting six women out of the rental house and packed into two cars, the handbag was left behind.  How could that be?  It is always nestled on the passenger’s side or tucked safely behind the driver’s seat.  How could I leave my life behind?

I panicked.  I could hardly bear the thought of driving two hours back to the scene of the crime, but I felt compelled to return immediately!  After all, the cleaning crew would be at the house soon and who knows what would happen to my life then?  My saintly husband drove.  My breezy comments about the things we saw along the way did a poor job of hiding my growing desperation ~ a feeling that was aggravated by my unreturned phone calls from the owner of the rental property.  So what if he was healing from a recent medical procedure?  This was my life!  Answer the phone!

I tried to calm myself down.  Okay.  Take inventory.  What exactly was sitting inside the little black box that I had left behind?  Lipstick and comb.  Who cares?  Prescription eyeglasses?  Expensive!  Wallet?  Ah, the keeper of my life!   Driver’s license.  Multiple credit cards.  Bank card.  Health identification card.  Resale license.  Assorted gift cards.  This inventory was not calming me down.  The thought of cancelling and then replacing those important bits of plastic caused frustration, annoyance and truthfully ~ disgust.  How could I possibly leave my life behind?

After repeated attempts to reach the landlord, my thoughts went spinning out of control.  The cleaning crew would soon be there. They will find my purse.  They will discover my life and steal it.  I will have to report them to the police.  No, they will take my purse to the police station and when I call, I will be told yes it is there but they are closing so come back tomorrow.  Tomorrow!  I have driven two hours!   There is no coming back!  My thoughts weren’t pretty.

“What if my handbag isn’t there when we arrive,” I wailed to my husband?  “What if the crew takes it?”

My irreverent reverie was interrupted by the landlord’s phone call…cleaning crew wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow.  He hopes I find the handbag.  With worries about the crew out of the way, I settled down and began to ponder the life I had left behind.

How silly to think what was sitting inside that little black box was my life!  Yes, those plastic cards were important to maneuvering in my world, but they didn’t define me!  They weren’t who I am!  It would be time-consuming and highly annoying to replace them, but it didn’t require replacing the me in my life.

I began to take deep breaths.  My husband assured me my little black box would be there.  We drove into the driveway.  I unlocked the front door and stepped inside. And there it was.  My black handbag sitting on the pristine white counter.  Bathed in the light streaming in the kitchen windows.   Almost glowing. Thank you, God!

As I swooped it up, I actually felt giddy.  It’s safely back in my possession.  My life had been restored.  Correction.  The trappings of my life had been restored, but I ~ the me in my life ~ had been there all along.