An Amazing Weekend...

I had the most wonderful weekend last week. Imagine if you will, eleven (yes, 11!) women together in a cabin in Donnelly, Idaho. Imagine the laughter, the sharing, the sisterhood... the absolute joy in each others' presence.

I don't remember how it started, the idea for this weekend, all I remember is saying, "Sure! I'll go to McCall in March with you all!" Before I knew it, the planning emails were flying as we all received our shopping and activity assignments. We were pretty excited, because this would be the first time since February 6th that we would see our "L'il General" Lola.

Lola had spent the last weeks recovering from her Valentine's Day kidney removal. She had volunteered to donate a kidney for a co-worker's daughter who had been on dialysis for several years. Long story short, a better matching donor was found (who unfortunately fell ill and that donation didn't go through) but Lola, having gone that far, chose to donate to an unknown recipient. She doesn't see herself as a hero... we beg to differ.

So, along with Lola, the wonderful women in attendance were: Theresa (our ultra-marathoner and the sweetest, most soft spoken woman I know), Michelle (Theresa's amazing friend from Corvallis), Char (deliberate, analytical, warm-hearted teacher), Paola (the Argentinian firecracker with constant smiles), Dodi (the sweet, compassionate teacher), Angie (the exuberant, loving engineer), Holly (the young one, and such a beautiful soul!), Karyn (my longtime, gracious, warm-hearted friend), Shellee (another longtime great friend and my "wife"), and me.

We were fortunate to have the loan of Theresa's friend's four bedroom, three bathroom "cabin" outside Donnelly. The word "cabin" is definitely an understatement, so we nicknamed it the "Cabin Mansion". We spent the weekend drinking wine, eating wonderful meals, snowshoeing in pristine white powder, soaking in the hot springs at Gold Fork, and sledding down the powdery hill right outside our door. We also spent a wonderful evening sharing... which is the inspiration for this blog posting.

Friday night, as we sat around the fireplace relaxing with a glass of wine, Lola asked us all to share two of our strengths and one of our weaknesses. After someone shared, we just naturally fell into a pattern of affirming and uplifting that person. It was a beautiful thing to hear women talk about what they saw as good and beautiful about themselves. Compassion, honesty, loving and helping seemed to be the strengths we had in common. Lack of self-esteem, unfortunately, seemed to be a far too common thread among the weaknesses. My hope is that the affirmations helped lessen that.

Somehow, I ended up the last to share. I had had a stressful week. The housing stimulus bill details came out, and I was very upset (I'm saving that for my blog at www.kimsmortgage.com), I had been stressing about my friends in danger of losing their jobs (I know far too many people at Micron), my business was extremely slow (being full commission, if I don't close loans, I don't get paid), and I was feeling overwhelmed. That morning, one of my clients called me to tell me he had been laid off at Micron. He then shared that his wife was due to deliver their second child end of March. She being a teacher, has an income, but he was feeling like a failure for not being able to provide for his family, and he was scared. Other friends of mine, one of whom was at our retreat, also were without jobs and in grave danger of losing their homes.

I tried to share a strength... I got out the words, "I truly care..." and broke down sobbing. I do not cry in front of people. My friends see me as the always up, always encouraging, always positive one. I couldn't do it any more. I couldn't fix it all, and I couldn't bear it. The words, "I can't take any more..." came out amid the sobs and gasps for air...

I felt love surround me... words of comfort... some embraced me, some touched me, but all loved me.

Some of the women I knew well, some I was just getting to know. At that moment, I knew I would love them forever.

This is how it is with wonderful, amazing, beautiful women. It's safe, it's loving, it's comforting and accepting. I think it's a bit like Heaven.

Oh, and the weakness I shared? Well... I did share that I'd been told by a chaplain I worked with that I have a bit of a "Messiah Complex"... feeling it's my calling to make the world right for everyone. Given the fact that my coach agreed with that wholeheartedly (and I admit, they're right to an extent), I guess I'd better work on that!