And so it begins...

The movers come today, dropping off the shipping cubes that will eventually contain my entire existence in this place: the accumulated memories and material goods that we have gathered in over the past 12 years, 9 months and 5 days. It amazing to me just how relative time really is. I swear that just yesterday it was Thanksgiving. How did 3 weeks pass without me noticing? Oh, that's right - I've been packing!

But God is in the details! All of the loose ends have been neatly tied in a bow. All that is left is the leaving. And that will come even more quickly!

So - this is my last post from California. By the time I come back to this space, I will be in my new home overlooking a lake. I will be surrounded by my family - both my birth/marriage family and the folks in our new church home. And although, over time details of this place may fade - the people I am holding dearly in my heart never will. I hope we have left a memory of us here, too.

Shalom and Merry Christmas!

Expectations

'tis the season of Advent. Each year nearly everyone who breathes celebrates this time of anticipation whether they know it or not. Pregnant women certainly understand the combination of excitement and fear that leads up to the final moments before birth. Little children can hardly contain themselves and enter into a game of hide 'n' seek with the packages they see mommy bring home. Of course, some children wonder if there will be anything at all this year. School children wait for the "winter holiday" to come and we all wish for a White Christmas - amazingly even those who live in places where it never snows at all!

This year "advent" seems a bit more, hmmmm, real. I am the one waiting for the launch of a new journey - a new life. It's not an abstract concept. Oh, I've been following and preparing and listening for some time now but the actual process of putting one foot in front of the other and knowing that I will never return to this life again is filled with excitement, fear, a little dread, great joy, anxiety... you name it, I'm feeling it.

With a deep sigh, a look of determination on my face, and a quick squaring of my shoulders, I rise this day in full anticipation of what it to come. I am daunted by the work left to do in order launch, but I am in "countdown mode" now - there is no turning back. I accept and allow this journey to unfold in all of its mystery.

So be it!

Storm after the calm

I am confused. Dazed, stunned, overwhelmed and confused. As I said to someone recently, "I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop [with regards to all of the marvelously synchronous way this move has come about] but I never expected the entire inventory of Payless to come crashing down on my head!"

My car needed some minor repairs. I have discovered "minor" is relative to the make/model and availability of service. I did earn enough in our yard sale to cover three of the four repairs. The more major job of fixing my heater fan [a bit of an incovenience when you're driving cross-country in DECEMBER!] was another matter. Unfortunately, the day I had to take my car back to Pleasanton [beware owning a specialty car... service is rarely local unless you live in a major metro area!] was the day was had to say goodbye to our faithful and loving Lab, Abby.

Then, our son has been fighting with banks and other financial junk for a while but this week it seemed to be more conflicted, more inanely stupid [on the bank's part] and a real challenge for me to allow him to figure it all out. He did. And he's ok with the results for now.

Grace came down with the flu. And she found out she didn't pass all of the proficiency exam so that she can move in January with a diploma. I guess we're back to square one on that front.

Then Larry's 93 year old grandmother is taken to the hospital. She had not been well for a week and prescribed treatment was doing nothing. Larry's mother expressed her fear more than once that if Granny went into the hospital, she doubted that she'd ever come home. Granny died yesterday. Peacefully. She was so tired and kept asking to "just go home." We all knew what she meant. It is so very sad - it's sad that the kids and I are, once again, stuck on another side of the world from family.

Oh, yeah... yesterday my car decided to die in the middle of the grocery store parking lot. So once again the car has been towed an hour a way and I'm holding my breath waiting for the prognosis. Can you DNR a car? Oh, and did I mention all the doomsday advice I've been getting about the house and the current downturn of the real estate market??

And yet, despite all that I can whine about I still feel strangely calm. Sad. Done. Exhausted. Yet I refuse to be shaken. I refuse to curse God. If this is a test I'm struggling with the answers and I don't know if I'll pass, but, dammit, I refuse to give up. I know in my heart, as surely as I sit here and feel the keyboard under my fingers, that this road is the one we're meant to travel. Kyrie Eleison.

There will be a rainbow. There is always a rainbow. I count on the promise of the rainbow!