Last Friday morning started well. I grabbed coffee downtown at the Flatiron Woods (no, not some smithy shop in the middle of the forest but rather a local coffee chain) with a friend. I even saw two of my hipster-est acquaintances at this location, which is akin to running into every homeschool Mom you know at my hometown Costco. Then I returned to my car and realized I had shut my keys in the door. Locked out. In a metered 2-hour parking space. This is the girl who had a hold on her college diploma because of unpaid parking tickets. I now avoid them like ze plague. Or like I avoid running into my siblings’ ex girlfriend/boyfriend’s parents (it happens more often than you think).

Thankfully, my sister rescued me during her lunch break and let me chill at her place until my husband got off work (see above selfie in her house). She also locked her keys in her car the previous Wednesday. Then I called to catch up with another friend and learned she’d also locked her keys in her car (well, the trunk) that day also.

If you get locked out of your car make lemonade out of the lemons. Or make almond cookies in your sisters’s kitchen when you’re stuck in it for 5 hours. Then leave funny notes on her fridge.

 

My husband and I have been in the habit lately of getting misty eyed at cheesy holiday commercials. You know the ones I’m talking about. Army Mom surpises son by being underneath the tree Christmas morning, Dad comforts daughter at all the major stages of her life just to let her go on her wedding day. Macklemore is rapping in Russel Wilson’s pool. You get the idea.

Basically all the feels have hit me (no, I’m not pregnant).  A beautiful song comes on Spotify while I’m babysitting and I think about how babies are so precious and they smell good. I miss my husband at work so I try to make his baggy shirts look retro/hipster/grunge so I can use it as an excuse to wear them (see above selfie) My Dad said he bought Star Wars tickets and I started crying because that was really sweet. Fact is, life is changing all over again. My husband has a new job, my nannying job will probably end soon, and another freaking Star Wars movie.

As much as we’d like Christmas to be about traditions, we have to acknowledge that Jesus coming changed everything.

We are not celebrating a yearly world-wide migration of an old jolly benevolent Saint whose story never changes

Santa is static. Jesus is dynamic.

Our lives are not static either, as we are constantly being propelled out of endings and into new beginnings.

I told my friend Kristi, “People keep asking if I still live in the same place,”

to which she replied,

“I can’t imagine you moving again. That would be crazy with all you’ve been through?!”

It sort of feels like being locked out of the car, you can’t go back to the last year. You can’t regain what’s lost. Do you call someone? Do you walk a little farther?

As much as I want to cling to the past, I know it’s bad for me. I have to say goodbye, a slow retreat away from my past identities. It can’t be rushed but it can’t be paused either.

Make room for the new beginnings. Invite them in, even if you’d rather pass them along to the next inn or your dingy storage shed. The act of saying goodbye, in Christ, implies that a hello will follow.

Stay warm.

-K