KIMZ PONDOSITIES

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 Rebirth — Kimz Pondosities™

I am sharing my story not to relive it, but to redeem it. To let you glimpse the jagged edges and the tender mercies that carried me back to myself. Every post, every part of my journey, every Pondosity™—born of pondering and curiosity—is a piece of truth I once held in my hands, sometimes trembling. Some are heavy with grief, some are almost too ordinary to notice, yet all of them shaped me. Wholeness is not something we strive for, but something we carry. And yet, with each season, another layer is revealed—giving us a deeper glimpse into who we are, and who we are still becoming. This is my first Pondosity™. My first RE-word. A beginning. A hand reaching out to say: here is where I have been, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find a piece of your own story in mine.

I decided to share my story starting today—August 31st. It is my birthday, yes, but more than that, it is a threshold. A pause between seasons. A symbolic doorway between the warmth of summer’s breath and the crisp hush of fall’s arrival. The beauty of shifting leaves, the comfort of earthy foods and warming spices, the gathering of souls around tables—all of it has always drawn me in. Autumn asks us to prepare—body, mind, and spirit—for what lies ahead. It has always been my favorite season, matched only by spring, for in both there is magic: colors that feed the depths of my soul, and the promise that endings are never just endings, but also beginnings. And this date, too, carries that symbolism: the thirty-first, a closing; and tomorrow, the first, a beginning.

It feels like the perfect moment to open my heart and launch Kimz Pondosities™—a space for soulful reflections, a practice of holding life’s fragments tenderly, and an offering to the sacred art of becoming. My first post of Kimz Journey on August 1st hinted at Route 66— “The Mother Road,” a phrase given breath by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath. In the coming months, I will return to that image and share what “The Mother Road” has come to mean in my own life: a path marked by both sorrow and wonder, a road where grief and grace walk side by side, and where I am learning, still, what it means to come home.

Rebirth doesn’t wait for birthdays. It comes without warning, without ceremony. Sometimes it comes in the simplest of mercies — a single breath. There were mornings when the thought of rising was more than I could bear. But I did. And that, too, was rebirth. Rebirth is always available as long as our hearts keep beating and even a flicker of hope survives. Every moment is an invitation to rise again. To shift. To wake up. To whisper through tears: I will try. Sometimes rebirth is quiet. A whispered prayer in the dark. A trembling decision to put your feet on the floor when everything inside you screams, don’t move. I have wrestled in those quiet moments of prayer—beseeching, pleading, arguing, even falling silent before God when words failed me. Prayer was often my only oxygen, the lifeline that carried me when nothing else could. Other times, rebirth has come to me like fire—fierce, terrifying, demanding my yes before I felt ready.

I remember my dear friend once driving me through a long tunnel one October, years ago. She refused to tell me where we were going. “Wait,” she kept saying. And then—light. We emerged into a blaze of color so radiant I could hardly breathe: reds, golds, greens, deep ambers, and purple crimsons, all singing at once like a living chorus. I gasped. I wept. My talkative self went utterly silent, undone by beauty. We were on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. That moment, too, was a kind of rebirth—light after dark, color after shadow, wonder after waiting.

Rebirth doesn’t always come from falling apart. Sometimes it’s about redirection. Sometimes it’s about expansion. The map changes not only through pain, but also through possibility: a marriage begins. A baby is born. A new job calls. A dream finally takes shape. Joy steals your breath, leaving you undone in wonder. And sometimes, the shift is harder. The midnight phone call that splits your world in two. The doctor’s voice on the other end of the line. The letter that changes everything. Once, as Ron and I stood waiting for a taxi to take us to the airport, the garage door creaked open. And there she was—my mother-in-law, her arm shattered, dropped off by a complete stranger. No call. No warning. Just the sight of her stumbling in, broken, while we were about to leave. That moment, too, was an undoing — one of many emergencies that shaped almost three decades. Whether the change comes with tears of joy or tears of mourning, it activates something deep within us. From grief to grace. From rupture to redemption. Life reroutes us. Sometimes painfully. Sometimes beautifully. And we are left holding pieces in our hands, asking: What now?

Rebirth isn’t about going back. It’s about waking up. About seeing yourself — and your life — again. Differently. Clearly. Honestly.

Some people fall. Some freeze. Some rise. And those who rise? They are not always the strongest. They are the ones who choose. The ones who look inward. Who re-evaluate. Who remember who they are beneath all the noise, roles, and expectations. That is the sacred work of becoming — again, and again, and again. This is what Kimz Pondosities™ is about. Not a blog. Not a performance. But a sacred pause to reflect. A breath in the becoming. A return. A re-turn. Each month, we will walk together into a word that begins with Re-. Because this is the work of being human: to reframe, to reflect, to remember, to reclaim.

Here’s what I’ve learned: you can’t be reborn unless you are first undone. And I have been undone — by betrayal, by loss, by exhaustion, by years of emergencies that left me weary to the bone. But that undoing was not failure. It became the fertile soil of my soul. Even in the unraveling, there was gratitude: for the wisdom gained, for the scars that whisper you survived, for the love that carried me when I could not carry myself. If you are in that tender in-between space — where nothing feels certain and your heart feels fragile — take heart. You are not lost. You are being re-formed. The Route 66 map? It doesn’t vanish. It expands. With every twist of the unknown, we gather wisdom. With every detour, we collect grace.

What quotes, sayings, lyrics, verses, or scriptures carry you when your own map shifts? What reminders anchor you when you need to begin again?

My birth verse is Romans 8:31 (AMP): "If God is for us, who can be successful against us?"

This has carried me, anchored me, and reminded me that the map may shift in huge ways, but I am never traveling alone.

So I ask you… What part of your life is aching for a fresh dawn? What needs rebirthing? Are you resisting the very thing that could set you free? Can you trust yourself in the process of unfolding? What small moment recently stole your breath and reminded you — you are alive? Let this be your gentle permission to soften. To pause. To cry if you must. To laugh when you can. To listen inward. You are allowed to start again — not because you failed, not because you didn’t measure up, but because you have grown. And growth is where the real map begins. 

Re- (Latin prefix): again, back, anew. Birth (Old English beran — “to bear, to bring forth, to give life”). Together: rebirth literally means to be born again, to come forth anew.

For this Pondosity™: rebirth isn’t about starting from nothing. It is about being brought forth anew — carrying both the scars and the wisdom of what came before.

Come back next month as we unpack another RE-word together.

I stand at the beginning of my new year and invite you to join me on this journey of discovery.

 💜💜💜 

 Regret Repackaged: From a Weighted Anchor to a Transformative Exertion — Kimz Pondosities™

After the awakening of August’s Rebirth, September invites us to turn back and gather the fragments of our past — not to drag them behind us, but to transform them.

Regret re-packaged is where we take what once weighed us down, wrap it in the deep, rich velvet of wisdom, and carry it forward as stored energy for the journey ahead.

In our American “no regrets” culture, we are often told to move forward quickly, to shrug off the past, to pretend that mistakes and missteps have no claim on us.

Yet regret lingers like a shadow, whispering of what could have been, of choices not taken, of words unsaid.

We’re told to ignore it, deny it, bury it under busy schedules, distractions and bright smiles. It lurks nagging and pulling, pushing and receding, being shoved into a closet of pain with the door tightly shut.

Regret doesn’t vanish just because we refuse to look at it, examine it. Left unacknowledged it coils quite around the heart and slows the flow of life — much like a boa constrictor mercilessly coiling around its victim until the very breath of life itself begins to suffocate — not into silence alone, but into a kind of timeless death.

Regret re-packaged and reimagined might just have a greater purpose, a dual purpose.

We often treat regret like an anchor — heavy, dragging us backward, holding us in place when we long to move ahead.

Left unexamined, that anchor becomes inertia: a paralyzing stillness where growth is stalled and hope feels unreachable.

But regret, when re-packaged, doesn’t have to chain us down. It can become the very weight that strengthens us, the resistance that builds new muscle, the stillness that teaches us how to listen.

And when we allow its transformative power to move through us, what once held us captive becomes the very force that unleashes a flood of exertion and forward motion.

For years, my own regrets felt like chains — heavy, cold, unrelenting.

Regrets over what I didn’t say.
What I didn’t choose.
Moments I can never reclaim.

I wore them like invisible armor, convincing myself they kept me safe from future hurt.

But the truth? They kept me stuck.

Here is where the dual purpose arrives.

Regrets were not only an anchor; they were a shield.

As a child, compliance became my survival strategy. In my world, compliance meant safety. Compliance meant maybe I wouldn’t be punished, or just maybe I would be loved.

Rebellion wasn’t in my framework. It felt too dangerous. Even when punishment came, I complied, compliance still seemed like the safest path.

Looking back, I see that regret — over not speaking up, not fighting back — was intertwined with this instinct to stay safe and was braided with remorse.

Regret sounds like “I wish I had chosen differently.”

Remorse has a deeper ache: “I feel the weight of the choice I made.”

It had served me. It protected me when I had no other tools. Both kept me alive.

The hard truth is that what once kept me safe, eventually kept me small.

Regret became my fortress. I carried it like armor, so heavy that it was difficult to move forward.

My belief was that it was my shield from pain. But instead of protection it actually caused me pain and paralysis from experiencing life to its fullest.

Instead of shielding my heart it went one step further and silenced it.

Then one day, in the quiet of prayer, something shifted. I saw regret not as an enemy, but as a teacher — one that had been patiently waiting for me to sit down, listen, and feel.

Really feel.
To lament.
To grieve.
To wail if I had to.

And in that space of unfiltered honesty, regret began to change shape and unlocked the door to healing.

When I allowed regret to be felt — fully, rawly, unflinchingly — it lost its power to imprison me anymore.

It stopped being a weighted anchor and gave me transformative exertion.

Movement.
Forward thrust.
A propulsion... into the next season of being more of the me, whom I, finally, genuinely love.

In Christianity, regret without hope can lead to despair — but with hope, it becomes repentance and redemption.

The Apostle Paul speaks of “Godly sorrow” that “brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret” (2 Corinthians 7:10).

Regret is not a dwelling place — it’s a passageway toward grace.

Many cultures and traditions don’t treat regret as something to discard, but as something to transform.

That was my turning point. I realized my regret could be repackaged and reimagined.

Now, I see my regrets as currents beneath my feet. They push me toward different choices, deeper connection, and a truer alignment with the person I am and the one I am becoming.

Regret has become my reminder of what matters most.

Kimism:
“I will honor my past without living in it or allowing it to become my identity. Any regrets will be my fuel for growth.”

Reflection:
What regret can I repackage into transformative exertion?
What if regret isn’t meant to be discarded?
What if, instead of rejecting it, we learn to embrace it and repackage it?

Dare we look into the inside of our re-packaged regret where we find a velvet-wrapped gift box of our past. The box is a deep, rich purple — the color of dignity, wisdom, and transformation — tied with a large satin bow that feels heavy yet inviting. Inside are not only sorrows but also seeds of understanding.

Within the weight of regret lie the very clues that can lead us to compassion, growth, and wholeness.

Etymology of Regret
The word regret traces back to the Old French regreter, meaning “to bewail, lament.” It carries the ache of longing for something different, the ache of wishing we could rewrite the script.

When we re-imagine, we don’t erase the ache — we give it a new frame. Reimagining invites us to see regret not as wasted pain but as a companion on our road to deeper self-knowing.

 So, when we speak of repackaging regret, we speak of taking that sorrow-that returns and deliberately wrapping it anew. Not to deny its existence, but to shift its weight, its form, its presentation. What once sat as an anchor can be re-bundled into something transferable—a parcel of wisdom, a transformed offering, even a gift to ourselves or to others. 

Invitation into Awareness and Acceptance

Instead of silencing regret, pause and listen.

Ask:
What is this regret showing me about my values?
What longing is hidden underneath the ache?
What might this sorrow be teaching me about love, humility, or courage?

Regret becomes less of a wall and more of a window when we grant it permission to speak.

Aligned Action Questions

What regret in my life am I ready to re-imagine and re-package?
How might this regret hold within it a gift of wisdom or direction?
In what ways can I soften my view of myself — or of another — through the lens of compassion?

Regret doesn’t have to be the end of the story. When reimagined, it can be a doorway — leading us into forgiveness, into clarity, into the next right step.

 💜💜💜 

  RECLAIM: When Gratitude Feels Out of Reach, Begin Smaller - Kimz Pondosities™

There was a season when gratitude felt like a foreign language — when others seemed fluent in praise, and I could only mouth the words.

The words I wanted to express verbally were jumbled, misunderstood, misrepresented, and contorted. I became inarticulate in the musings of my heart and soul.

I was trying to speak a language fluently that I had forgotten — or more truthfully, had never been taught properly. I grasped for words because of the hurt that had stomped on my heart.

I cried out in private, yearning to be grateful and thankful.

I knew how to celebrate others and effuse about their joys, their accomplishments, all that God seemed to be doing in their lives — yet I was unable to recognize anything to be grateful for in my own life.

I asked myself, and God, in fear and trembling if I was being disrespectful in my lack of thankfulness and ingratitude. I questioned how an attitude like this could appear, seemingly out of nowhere.

I didn’t realize that the step toward honesty and realness with God would unleash a heart truly committed to finding joy in each sorrow.

Through this, I began to see gratitude in the smallest things — things the world at large might overlook as insignificant.

There was a time I could cheer for everyone else’s breakthroughs and blessings yet stay silent about my own ache. I could rally others toward belief while secretly doubting myself.

Reclaiming, I learned, isn’t a spotlight moment.

It is the quiet return to truth — the unclenching of fists, the surrender of the script, and the willingness to see my own reflection without fear.

I remember sitting in a women’s Bible study, surrounded by radiant hearts — journals open, voices lifted, eyes glistening with thanks.

I wanted to feel it too.

I smiled, nodded, whispered “Amen,” but something in me couldn’t translate the goodness they spoke of.

Gratitude felt distant — like a melody I once knew by heart but had forgotten how to hum.

My life felt fragile. I was grateful to be breathing, yet even breathing felt heavy.

I knew when I spoke honestly, my ache would sound like ingratitude.

So I stayed quiet — caught between reverence and rawness.

And yet, not every face looked as light as their words sounded.

Some smiled wide, but their eyes flickered with weariness or pain.

Sometimes we hide beneath our praise, presenting what’s expected instead of what’s real.

That circle of women became a reflection of the world — a cheerleading team of praise, each voice amplifying the next.

I used to be the head yell leader for varsity basketball — right there on the court, close to the crowd, feeling the pulse of every heartbeat and the surge of every shout.

That kind of energy makes you want to rally everyone, to keep spirits high, to keep the rhythm alive.

But there is another rhythm beneath that one — the quiet rhythm of truth that doesn’t always clap in time.

In that room of praise and gratitude, I didn’t feel safe enough to share my truth.

Usually, I’m the first to speak — the one who opens the room, who dares to go first.

But that day, I didn’t speak at all.

I tucked my head in like a tortoise, curled inward like a little pill bug protecting its tender inner parts.

And I wonder how many of us do that every day — hide in plain sight because honesty feels unsafe.

Authenticity breeds freedom.

It vibrates at a higher frequency, right alongside love.

When I’m authentic, people exhale. They open, they share.

One person’s permission becomes everyone’s permission.

Some squirm in the discomfort of it, yes — but most breathe easier when truth finally takes a seat at the table.

That day, I didn’t speak up — but the silence cracked something open inside me.

It was small, almost imperceptible, like the sound of a seed splitting underground.

But that crack became the doorway.

Release always precedes renewal.

You cannot heal when you refuse to feel.

You cannot reclaim what you still pretend doesn’t hurt.

Somewhere between the ache and the “Amen,” I whispered my first truth.

Not a thank you, but a plea: “God, please help me.” When I whispered this, it was my confession of weariness and a release from pretending to be strong.

My words trembled, but heaven heard.

It wasn’t pretty. It was real.

And in that surrender, something wholly, holy shifted.

I not only began to repackage my regret —

I reclaimed my gratitude.

That was my beginning.

Because last month we have repackaged regret, we honored the ache, and transformed it, we can now reclaim what was never truly lost: our worth, our voice, our wholeness.

Reclaim is the bridge between reflection and restoration.

It says, “I no longer need to live in review; I can live in renewal.”

It’s where the rearview mirror becomes a compass — not a danger zone or a prison, but a guide pointing forward.

To reclaim is not to chase what has vanished — it is to remember what has always been ours: our character, our calling, our sacred center.

These may be shadowed by disappointment, buried beneath regret, or silenced by doubt — but they never disappear.

When we do the sacred work of releasing what was, we clear the debris.

What remains is gold — the essence of who we’ve always been, shining beneath the dust.

Etymology of Reclaim

To reclaim: to call again — from Latin re, “again,” and *clamare*, “to cry out.”

We cry out for what matters — not with desperation, but with declaration.

We don’t seize gratitude; we summon it home.

This month, let the practice be gentle.

You don’t have to fake thankfulness or force joy.

Start where you are.

Notice one thing — one breath, one color, one sound — that stirs something kind within you.

Write it down if you can.

Whisper it if that’s all you have strength for.

Each noticing is a reclamation.

Each small thank you is an act of return.

And sometimes grace answers through nature itself.

A hummingbird hovers close, rapidly beating its wings like a prayer in flight.

A ladybug lands in the dead of winter — a miracle in red, reminding me that God still sees me even in the off-season.

Because every season is God’s season to be on.

A bumblebee drifts by — heavy, humming, hovering, billowy, bountiful and pollinating.

These small visitations feel like heaven’s punctuation marks — holy reminders that love lingers near.

Each time they appear, I remember: even in distress, I am noticed, held, and seen.

Gratitude doesn’t have to roar.

It can whisper.

Honesty, even raw and unpolished, is reverence.

The burden releases itself through confession, not performance.

It isn’t gratitude itself that frees us — it’s the truth-telling that unlocks it.

My conversations with God have not always been gentle; sometimes they’ve been a cyclone, a tornado.

But God understood me — and showed me that the smallest things in life are often what I can be most grateful for.

And each time we notice, we rise a little higher — from the ground of regret into the air of rejoicing —

where gratitude matures into joy.

 💜💜💜