Different But the Same

I am waiting for my flight home. After the hurry, hurry, hurry and rush, rush, rush to get to the airport, check-in, go through security, I now have plenty of time to wait. I was lucky enough to secure a pass to the United Club so I wait in a nice atmosphere with free food and cushy chairs.  And in my waiting, I have time to reflect on my week here in London.

Yep, THAT London.  The one in England.  It is my first trip here and I hope, won't by my last.  To be honest, London has never been high on my list of must-see places.  I mean, after all, they speak English which means they aren't very exotic.  No, I want foreign lands with foreign tongues and foreign ways of living.

So imagine my surprise when I fell in love with London and its people.  We are different yet the same. I see so much heritage here that influenced the birth and heritage of my home country, the USA.  And I can also see why our forefathers decided to break away from royalty and become a land of fierce independents.  

But it's the one-to-one connections, the person-to-person connections that have made the most impact on me.  We are different but the same.  We seek similar goals of love, belonging, family, safety and such.  Indeed, that is true no matter where I travel.  Language may be a barrier.  Customs may be seem unfamiliar.  But at the core, the heart of it, we are not so different but the same.

So thank you Maggie and Di and Peter and the Uber drivers and nameless others who welcomed me to your delightful city and made my stay so enjoyable!

If you want to see photos, you can follow me on Instagram @kcpace

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.

Ready. Aim. Focus.

2013. Grow. Journey. Adventure.

As I entered 2013 last January, I could not get "a" word.  Usually one word comes to me and is my compass for the year.  But last January three words came to mind and that should have been my clue.  Little did I know that "the" word, a singular word, wouldn't become apparent again until I had journeyed through the 365 days ahead of me.

It is said that it takes an average of two years before coming out from under the fog of death, divorce or other loss of a great love.  I thought with my mother's passing in December 2012 that I was freed up from responsibilities of her care and that time, resources and focus would literally be on an adventure.  I even envisioned exactly what that adventures would be.

Well, I did take some road trips, but my 2013 words were not about those kind of adventures.

What I missed in my assessment of "grow, journey, adventure" was how inter-related yet separate each word was.  I would spend a year growing into my new reality of Mom's absence, and with it, the empty feeling of being an orphan.  I would spend a year slowly journeying down a path of mourning, shedding my mantle from deeply impacted grief to step out of the fog into daylight.  I just didn't realize this was my year's journey because I was so functional and deeply sad but not miserable.  And I did have fun, even terrific adventures but now I realize they weren't the focus but merely gifts in my year's journey.

As I experienced a most amazing joy-filled Christmas at the end of 2013, and as I looked back over Christmas 2012, I now realized that I was on an unexpected journey from despair to hope, fog to light.  And so, my singular word has returned.

2014. Focus.

I am a life-long generalist.  So much interests me that I get bored quickly.  There is just too much to experience.  In many ways, this layering of multiple experiences has served me well, but at the same time it has kept me from going deeper.

Focus. I even know what I am to focus on.  True, it's not just one avenue, but it's going deeper in selected avenues and not being distracted. 

In 2013, I was on a journey back to life, back to my mother's legacy of "Love hard. Play often. Forgive much. Live well."  Had I known, I would have embraced the journey.

"For I am about to do something new.  See, I have already begun!  Do you not see it?  I will make a pathway through the wilderness.  I will create rivers in the dry wasteland." - Isaiah 43:19, NLT

No, I did not see it, but I see it now.  A pathway has opened and for this year I need to focus, nourished by fresh flowing rivers within me.

"Focus your eyes straight ahead; keep your gaze on what is in front of you." - Proverbs 4:25, CEB

I have energy that was missing.  I have hope that was shrouded.  I have true joy in being right where I am at the start of a new year.  Focus.  It's a good word.
 

Love You Eternally

Today I wanted the world to stop and acknowledge a year's time since Mom's passing ~ but it didn't.  Life moved on with its everyday stuff.  It felt normal.  Too normal.  I wanted tears and gnashing of teeth, but what came were small waves of sadness.

Indeed, they say that time heals all wounds, but I think they've got it wrong.  My wounds are not healed; they are manageable.  Her loss is still great, but it has been reduced to tender moments rather than mounds of grief.

When I think of Mom and Dad passing on the same day ~ the 9th ~ albeit different months and different years, it makes me smile.  They were together 62 years, why wouldn't they exit life out the same door?  But when I stop and dwell on the reality that I am an orphan, the smile fades and I cling only to the memories.

Today, it is about lifting up Mom's memories.  I cannot move further into another year without her, unless I first acknowledge her loss and embrace her love that still shines within me.

Here's looking at you, Mom!  I hope you are enjoying heaven as much as you enjoyed life on earth. 

You are the Architect

9

Nine.  A number that for most, may not bear any particular meaning.  For me, nine means death.  Loss.  Repositioning of my place in the order of things.  Rethinking who I am, where I came from, where I am headed.  

I was kindly warned that grief would have many faces.  Nine is one of them.  Nine is the number both of my parents chose to disembark from planet Earth, albeit on different years.  

I am trying hard to be grateful for their longevity.  Thankful for their loving parenting.  Honoring of who they were simply for they sake of who they were and not just because they were my parents.

I am trying hard to believe that they are dancing with the angels and not just disappearing in the dirt.  I am clinging to heaven with the hope of Christ.  I have no choice.  Otherwise, I feel desperation.

Perhaps it's because this is a week that ends with a journey to place Mom's ashes next to Dad's back in their chosen place of resting.  It was her wish.  It's the least I can do despite my dread.  I will most likely never go back to that place again.  Makes me sad.

So I will shake the grief off my shoes and walk ahead.  It's what they both would want.  Nestled forever in my heart and my memories.

Loneliness

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-impact-of-loneliness/#axzz2e2LENfHD