The Email That Made Me Rethink My Priorities

I read an email that Casey Means (if you don’t know who she is, you should definitely look her up 😉) wrote last week and it hasn’t left my mind. She was in the path of the horrific fires in California and had to evacuate quickly. Her email was about what she went through from the time she got word she needed to leave to when she got to safety.

Being a highly empathic person, I’m not surprised the email won’t let me forget about it. I care deeply about the sufferings of people, whatever it may be. When I read stories of grieving people or elated people, I can not only imagine their emotions but it’s almost like I can feel them inside my body as I’m reading the words. This is definitely something that is a very good thing but left unchecked, can also be not a good thing. Anyway……

What really got me about this email was she spoke about what she grabbed in the 15 minutes she had before needing to leave her home. She talked about the things she grabbed being instinctual to her. And I can’t stop thinking about, what would be the things that I would grab? Now, I’m sitting here, and I have time to think and the only thing I can tell you without hesitation is my loved ones, I can’t imagine having 15 minutes to come up with and grab the things that I would want to save in the event that the fires would destroy my home!

A little back story on me, I have been through a house fire many years ago. It’s the most awful, surreal experience that I still can get triggered from to this day. If I hadn’t woken when I did and got my mom and her boyfriend awake from upstairs, they wouldn’t have got out alive. The smoke detectors did not start going off until we were all leaving the front door. And what did I grab, nothing. I put shoes on that were the worst thing to wear in January snow, but I could easily slide them on and a jacket that thankfully had my car keys in it. My brain wasn’t even registering what was happening. So, when Casey wrote about what she grabbed and showed pictures, I was in total awe of her.

And it got me thinking that she probably had thought about this at one point and had an idea of what she would grab. Here I am, having gone through a house fire, and I haven’t thought once about what I would grab if it happened again.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I do now have a few fire safe boxes that hold important information and pictures on CD, but other than that, everything would be gone if a fire took my house.

Okay, my main point of this blog post, this email got me thinking that I really need to clean up the clutter in my house and I also need to give some thought to what I would grab. And I want you to think about it too. I don’t want you to live in fear and let this take you over, please don’t do that, but I want you to feel prepared in an event where you have to act quickly.

 Here are a few practical steps I’m planning to take, and I hope you’ll consider them too:

1.      Declutter Your Home: The less clutter you have, the easier it will be to know what’s truly important. Start by going through one room at a time and ask yourself, “Would I grab this in an emergency? Does this add value to my life?”

2.      Create a "Grab List": Write down a list of items you’d want to take in case of an emergency. Keep it somewhere accessible. Consider things like important documents, sentimental items, and essentials like medications or a phone charger.

3.      Prepare an Emergency Kit: Have a go-bag ready with basics like water, snacks, a flashlight, a first-aid kit, and copies of important documents. This way, you’re not scrambling to gather supplies in a crisis.

4.      Practice and Discuss: Talk with your family about what to do in an emergency. Practice your evacuation plan so everyone knows their role. It may feel unnecessary now, but muscle memory can make all the difference when every second counts.

5.      Use Fire-Safe Storage: If you have irreplaceable items or important documents, invest in fire-safe storage to protect them.

6.      Back Up Digital Files: Scan important documents and photos and save them to a cloud service or an external drive stored outside your home.

Reflecting on Casey’s email has been a wake-up call for me to focus on what truly matters and to be proactive instead of reactive. I’m sharing this with you not to add anxiety to your life but to encourage you to take small steps to prepare. It’s not about living in fear; it’s about creating peace of mind.

So, I want to ask you: If you had 15 minutes to evacuate, what would you grab? Take a moment to reflect on this when you’re ready and consider small, manageable steps toward preparation. Let’s be ready, not because we expect disaster, but because we value what we hold dear.