That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
You know how little kids often have imaginary friends? Well, Sean has a ghost named Oswald. At first, it was really cute when he blamed everything on the “ghost” because he says the word ghost like it is a French word/very Pink Pantherish. It stopped being cute a while ago after the ghost threw away one of our Nintendo DS systems in the trash and didn’t tell Sean to tell us until after the trash was thrown away.
The ghost was really at work last week. A lot of challenging things were happening to some people whom I really love and I was not as mindful as I should have been. One day while I was trying to comfort a friend on the phone, Sean gave the ghost my keys. I have not seen them since. I’m giving the ghost one more week to bring my keys back. If he doesn’t, I will be changing my locks (just in case). That ghost is getting to be expensive.
Later in the week, my cell phone disappeared. The ghost! My husband and I joked that we are going to find Sean’s secret hiding place one day. It will definitely be a “D’oh!” moment, because NYC apartments really are not big enough for too many hiding spaces.
In any event, all is well that ends well. It turns out that it was time for a free phone upgrade from Verizon anyway. (I love Verizon. Do you hear that iPhone? When are you coming over?) I picked one in a bright red. That way, it should be easy to spot…just in case. As far as the door keys, I think that was a mixed blessing. We need to change the top lock anyway, because it catches. If we mistakenly shut the door when the key is in the outside lock, we get locked inside. At other times, it just arbitrarily decides that it does not want to let us out of the apartment. I don’t like for a door lock to have that much control of my comings and goings! To make the situation even sweeter, I found out today that I had won a $100 Visa Gift Card prize from Tom’s of Maine & BlogHer as a random prize winner from Karianna Spectrum’s review blog. That should cover the price of my new lock. My house still needs an exorcism though…
To be honest, I could have called this post “Mindfulness Fail Week”, but (just this once) I prefer to blame everything on the ghost. In all seriousness…Yes, I want to be mindful. That is one of my “words” for the year. However, there are times that I need to connect with family and friends when they are hurting. Best case scenario, I will be both (mindful and connected). If one has to give from time to time though, I’ll choose to let mindfulness go. I can always get more keys, phones, etc. Being there in a loved ones time of need…irreplaceable.