It's Friday

Microsoft Office 2007 Word is old hat now. Who would have thought that it would be so easy to use now, only one year after I told the salesperson at Best Buy I wanted to throw it out the window because Vista was driving me crazy. It has been one full year since I started grad school, and I’m about to finish my second year teaching. And today, I felt younger than I have before I even started all of that.
Today I greeted a high school tennis team who showed up to play mine. I coach junior high. Enough said. Intersquad was my only option to supply some competition, which came to a quick halt as the rain clouds rushed in. The parents wanted to gloss over their frustration by getting to the end of the season party before five. I was just glad I made it through an hour of smoothing things over without crying…too much.
So when do you ignore the thoughts of, “So when am I finally gonna get fired” when you feel more like a child who couldn’t organize their sock drawer if they tried? I did feel adult-like on the way home when I considered using the $180 gift card to purchase a GPS instead of some Banana Republic items. After all, I could reclaim my reputation as a decent coach if next year I actually got our team to all the matches without getting lost.
I find it’s better to laugh at these things than any other options. It’s like the day that you try really hard to do something right, like exercising after work, and suddenly you hear sudden sirens and get stuck in a hail storm a mile from your car (personal experience, last week).
“What do these situations say about us personally?” we sometimes ask. I decided today that none of it really is personal. The fact is, we do not control our lives, and we get older and maybe even less smarter every year. But somehow, by the grace of God, we still learn things somewhere in between the hail and accusations of monster mommies that makes us a little stronger…and a lot more that I’m hoping will surface later.