“As callings do, this time, it spoke to me again....a little louder.” – Kim Kalicky

Once my students get to Module 3 in my course, Your Epic Journey of Transformation, I ask them to write about one of their Heroine’s Journeys. I actually tell people they can bullet it…they don’t have to be a “writer” to write it. Just get it down, somehow, because then you’re acknowledging yourself, your story. It’s important to talk about the Heroine's Journey in real life. It serves as a marker in your history of becoming more and more you. You are telling yourself, you matter.

So, you get it – I’m asking that they write however they need to do it to get their story down. I want them to just do it. Yes, I used to be an English teacher and required rigor in peoples’ writing…but that’s not this course! 

One Heroine’s Journey In Real Life

But then, there’s Kim Kalicky, author. Author of three books, Away at a Camp in Maine, Mothers Fulfilled and Eventide. She finished her assignment, sent it to me (another course requirement) and well, what can I say? She’s a writer. I had to share her story with you. Thank you for giving me permission to share this, Kim.

What do you say, Paris, anyone?

My assignment in Lesson 5 to list my leaps did illustrate some patterns. My leaps are all “leaving” for somewhere or creating (books) – i.e. going to a different college than family or peers had attended, going into a different career than anyone I knew, studying abroad and travel in Europe, leaving jobs, leaving my house for a new house after 25 years, going to Paris alone (on a women’s retreat) at the age of 50. The repeated gifts I got from several of my favorite leaps are pure joy and hopefulness. Those words came up in all 3 of the leaps I chose to do the matrix on. 

I’ve chosen my trip to Paris with you, Susanna, the year I was turning 50, on a women’s retreat to write about because it’s a story I don’t ever want to forget and should certainly put “pen to paper” for my own remembrance. 

I have found parenting to get harder, the older kids get. Middle school was harder than elementary or toddler years; high school was harder yet again; college years were a roller coaster of emotions, issues and financial burden; adulting has become the hardest thus far...especially having a pandemic hit after both sons had “launched.” As an emotional and sensitive person, I think it’s hit me this way because the issues become more serious and impactful, and because it hurts me more to see my kids sad, suffering or disappointed with life or the world, than it hurts me personally for my own setbacks. 

So, in my mid-forties, kids in high school and college, my “ordinary life” was feeling a bit heavy. Married forever, working at my firm forever, the same daily routine forever, the emotions of coaching and navigating sons through those years when I was just more tired, frankly, were all weighing on me. 

Working With Susanna

I decided I needed a “Susanna-fix.” I went to your website to see if you might be hosting another women’s retreat in Bath which I had attended a few years prior having come in 2nd in a writing contest you hosted. That weekend in Bath with you and the other women impacted and moved me deeply. There on your website, once again, I was reminded of your BIG retreat, the trip to France that you and Barbara Babkirk hosted annually. I had seen that offering years earlier and knew that was surely a bucket list item! I knew I’d LOVE to do that. But at that earlier time, the calling was still a whisper. I refused the call. As callings do, this time, it spoke to me again....a little louder. My heart swooned. I wanted to do it. 

While studying abroad in London at the age of 21, I met my Colby College roommate, who was from Denmark (also named Susanna), in Paris and had the most wonderful trip together! I pretend I’m a French girl. I studied French from the 7th grade through college; I’ve read many books about France, a favorite being French Women Don’t Get Fat which I embraced at age 40 for the lifestyle and joie de vivre I was seeking! My Pinterest and Instagram photos I save include many of France. 

I mentioned the trip to my husband. He said “Go! You’ll love it.” I mentioned it to my sons and they said, “Go! It’s so YOU!” For a matter of weeks, while running, I’d think about it and was surprised and saddened by the thoughts that came up for me: you’re not worthy; it’s too extravagant; you can’t go on a trip by yourself without your family; you can’t spend that money just on yourself. I had never had thoughts like this in my life. This wasn’t the confident, hopeful, adventurous person I used to be. 

I was turning 50. It felt like a milestone I should celebrate and relish, just for me, in my own way. Emotionally drained, I knew I should do it for my own psyche, hoping that I’d find that that 21-year- old girl, full of dreams & hopes, still lived somewhere inside me. 

I’m a decision-maker. I’m not a procrastinator; I am a do-er. But I was really struggling with this decision and the calling of it kept getting louder. 

I Finally Made A Decision

On a run, finally, I said YES. I made the decision to go. Truly, literally, I felt the earth shake. My whole body felt that something shifted when I made that decision. And then, magic began to happen. 

The next day, I learned my first book, Away at a Camp in Maine, had won a national book contest. The following day, THE agent I had been wanting to work with, and I had been dripping on for years, emailed to say she wanted to have a telephone call with me about book #2 Mothers Fulfilled. I KNEW something had changed. Something was happening. And.....it was good. 

Crossing The Threshold

Making the decision (crossing the threshold), I did have fearful thoughts and moments leading up to that Mayday that I was flying to Europe. On the plane, alone, I had a bit of an anxiety attack that the other women wouldn’t be there or I wouldn’t be able to find them and how crazy was I flying off alone like this?! But then, even the flight on Air France made me feel like “Madeleine.” I felt like an adventurer!

The double-decker huge plane was awesome; the stewardesses were beautiful, cosmopolitan and spoke several languages; they actually served a meal with wine on the plane that tasted delicious! I was really having fun. I calmed down and figured I could handle a week alone in France if the others didn’t show up – I could do it. Mmmm....there was that 21-year old girl (my mentor). 

The trip was pure joy for me in every way....so not sure where the belly of the whale or the dragon/supreme ordeal come in. I relished every minute. The other women and my hosts were at the hotel, right where they said they’d be – no need to have worried! At first meeting, each woman was asked what brought her to this trip and what did she hope to get from it. They all said they wanted the company of the others. I did, too, for some of my week....but for some of my week, this journey was to prove something to myself, and being alone was needed. In fact, that first afternoon, I hired a bicyclist who pedaled me, alone in my buggy, up the Champs Elysée to the Arc de Triomphe, and truly, my joy was so great, I thought I would burst. 

I hadn’t had that much fun in a very long time! 

I took so many pictures on the trip: Giverny was charming; Chartres Cathedral was taking me outside my element walking the labyrinth, and the meditation was expanding me in a way I’d not experienced. I shopped in Chartres and bought pretty clothes for who I was then and what spoke to me. I sat alone in a café in the sunshine, in the middle of the most glorious farmer’s market I’d ever seen, eating a Panzanella salad, drinking Perrier, and was then served a tiny Cassis and Champagne cocktail I hadn’t ordered – just part of the service -- and I felt like a princess! My smiles in every photo are bigger and more genuine than I’d seen on my face in a long time. 

The gifts I received from this leap: 

• pure Joy
• happiness 
• a release from my ordinary life 
• hopefulness for the future 
• the realization that the 21-year-old girl (whom I liked being) was still there 
• a joie de vivre going forward when I returned to ordinary life (that I see needs a jumpstart every so many years!) 
• a lightened heart 
• a renewed willingness and energy to tackle family & work life going forward 
• confidence and belief in my writing because of the book things that occurred....I believe, because I made the decision to do something that was right for me. I was choosing me. And, I was saying yes to who I uniquely am and honoring that soul. 

One Heroine’s Journey In Real Life: What Happens After

One more gift that my sons and husband received because of my trip was seeing that doing something for ourselves as individuals is right and good! I was a happier person when I returned. I showed them something that fulfilled and mattered to me....and a few years later, their Mother’s Day Gift to me was taking me to brunch at a little French bistro in the Old Port that I didn’t even know existed. They loved being able to gift to me something they knew I’d love. Showing my loves, showing who I am, gave them joy as well! 

As you can see, the Heroine's Journey in real life is even better than just learning about it!