On Losing Everything.

The day after posting on Facebook that I have recently lost my house keys, mail keys, driver's license and credit cards (wallet), my soccer cleats and my favorite black boots...I somehow managed to lose my car keys in Smith's.

After about thirty minutes of searching and one ba-jillion promises to God that I would stop eating the brownies on our counter and instead eat the fiber one bars that are only 90 calories and much better for me if He would just help me find my keys, a kind person turned them in to the front desk.

Relief.

I just couldn't imagine calling Cj and telling him I lost the only remaining key (of any kind) we have to our name. Also it was getting really awkward following the customer service lady around and trying to make small talk while I was dying a little bit inside.

It has been a few weeks of not only losing everything but forgetting everything, breaking everything and just...messing things up. Ever have weeks like that?After I loaded my groceries I sat in my car and cried a little because, well, seriously??? What is wrong with me??

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Tonight at dinner Cj and I were talking about why I have been so absent-minded lately and I decided that it was probably God telling me that I am a lost cause and that I should quit all major responsibilities in my life and just stay home and watch Jeopardy.

Seeing as how I am pretty good at Jeopardy and second-as-good at Wheel of Fortune (which happens to air right afterward) it seemed like a pretty logical reason to me.

Someone has to be the Jeopardy person. It might as well be me.

I told a friend this plan and she said this: "God does not create lost causes. It would be awful to believe that your only lot in life was to do nothing of importance."

And I thought about it for a while, and while her answer was really sweet I decided "not really."

Because I really like the new pillows we have on our couch and I'm especially fond of sewing and/or when the category on Jeopardy has anything to do with the TV show 30 Rock (which has only happened once but I'll be darned if I didn't get every single answer right.)

Now, I don't mean for this blog post to take a dramatic turn but I can just feel it happening and I'm going to go with it. Because somewhere in the middle of my wallowing-in-self-pity and Final Jeopardy I learned that the levvy in my hometown of Santa Clara, UT broke, seriously damaging 25-30 homes and small businesses.

This has happened to us before. Flooding, that is.

 In 2005 my town flooded enough for me to watch dozens of homes literally wash away in a raging river. I remember staying up through the night on "flood watch" with my friends, as we sat at the edge of a cul-de-sac and radioed in as more pieces of our town broke off and fell in.

This experience taught me that losing a home is tragic. I know it seems obvious when I write it out like that, but I think before that I always equated tragedy with only death.

But this. This was tragic. It was tragic when my close friend and advisor lost all of his family pictures and childhood memories to the flood. Tragic when our family friends lost their new home that was scheduled to be finished in less than two weeks after years of building. And now, it is tragic again to hear of friends and neighbors who have lost their businesses and possessions to a natural disaster that you never imagine will happen in your dry desert.

Your home is a part of your family, so is your hometown. And, just like in 2005, the thing that can be done is to get off your couch (and turn off the TV) and help. Use your hands. Use your kindness. That is what you do when something awful happens. Only I am here, and they are there, which is hard. It's hard not to be there for your people when something tragic happens.

I don't know how this silly post turned into me sharing my heartfelt feelings about the home and the people I love. Sometimes writing takes you places you didn't plan on being.

What I do know is that the past two weeks I have felt like my own levvy was knocked down. Like I have been my own personal flash flood, destroying everything in my life. What can I do? Sometimes, it rains. And sometimes, it rains so hard that a giant wall of water takes down your favorite gas station.

And so, I've decided. I'm going to stop being the flood and start being...not the flood. And I'm going to do that by remembering cheesy and relevant ideas like this:

Even if I have lost all major items that help my life to function, I have in no ways lost everything. Today was a reminder that it could always be worse. That I really don't have it that bad.

Praying for Santa Clara, praying for America. And you, my friends, can too.

Love,

Katie