Hello, Hello, Hello. Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye.

This is a private post intended directly for the following people:
Hayden Thomas
Mark Carter
Taylor Stafford
Just because I never met you doesn't make the impact you've made any less significant.

Unzipped

While my husband (and I) finished our class in early May, our daughter is still in school, on her last week. I reminded her that this is her last Monday, and she was excited. She also noted that she has only one more visit to "resource" each before school is out--music, library, art and PE. It seems like this year went by fast. She is enrolled in a summer program at the arts magnet where she went last year. I went there last week to fill out the paperwork and arrived right at 3pm. All the classes had just let out, and I found myself being jostled as I made my way down the band locker hallway. I hadn't been in a middle school in some time. Are the hallways really that small? Or have I gotten bigger (mentally and physically)? I also noted that leaving my handbag unzipped, as is my practice, might not have been the best idea for that hallway trip, not for what could be taken, but for what could be placed in there for me to discover at a later date. Of course, there was no chewed gum (this was the band hallway, after all) stuck to my wallet, but I realized that zipping my purse was an awfully stodgy and grown-up thought, in a, "You kids quit playing in my yard" kind of way.
I've got to put that mentality in check. For me, even worse than aging physically is aging mentally. I've already stopped listening to the latest emo band (is it Fall Out Boy?), but can watch Twilight over and over, so maybe that evens everything out. I am the oldest gen X-er, born on the cusp of boomer/X and have continually strived for a wholly X attitude.
So unzipped I will stay.

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Lenten Resolutions

There are many things one can "give up" during the season of Lent, the 40 days, excluding Sundays, preceding Easter. One should make a resolution only after prayerful consideration, not on the morn of Ash Wednesday in desperation. I considered giving up something frivolous and time-consuming, so I went with it. And I have stuck to it without a backward glance. But if I don't really miss it, is it really a sacrifice?
Had I chosen to give up some food item, you can bet I'd have broken my resolution by now with flying colors. Had I chosen to give up some wrong thinking, I would have already thought those bad thoughts already.
I was intrigued and moved by the second verse of the recessional hymn we sang yesterday:
In haunts of wretchedness and need, on shadowed thresholds dark with fears
from paths where hide the lures of greed, we catch the vision of thy tears.
It seems that Jesus suffers our sorrows as well. That is comforting.
It also makes participating in wretchedness a lot less alluring knowing that Jesus is watching. Some of my wretched behaviors and thoughts include selfishness, pride, envy and frustration. And some of those behaviors can bring me to tears as well. Perhaps I should have considered giving up those things, not only for Lent, but for all time.
I will begin to consider that my Lenten resolution of 2010.