Flaws that Don't Define Us

Recently, a lady called me three times because she couldn't get a door in our complex to open (and apparently it was essential that she get her suitcases into her storage unit that hour). As the manager, I went upstairs to see if I could use my natural finesse to open the door. (Yeah right. I have no natural finesse.) No matter how I tried, the key would not turn the last quarter of an inch.

My brain is exactly like a key in a lock that won't turn all the way. I am spacey. I try so hard to stay organized and keep life simple mainly as a means of survival.

Case in point:

• I once locked the keys in the car while it was running. In fact, in high school, I locked the keys in the car so much that my dad installed a magnetic key holder under the car. 
• I'm so paranoid about missing another bill that I fairly regularly have credits because I've double paid. 
• I struggle at Costco. If I manage to remember to pay with the the right card before they kick me out of line, I throw the receipt into the trash before I get to those checker people at the exit. 
• I recently took borrowed books on two separate mini-vacations. Both times the borrowed book did not make it home with me. You'd think I would have learned that lesson after the first trip! Nope! (And you may want to think twice before lending me something.) 

Barring the keys-in-car incidents of high school, I was actually a bit less spacey back then. It has worsened since having children. Keeping track of two little boys who are constantly bouncing off the walls seems to be about all I can handle right now. But I would much rather misplace a borrowed book than one of them, so maybe I'm doing better than I think!

To help motivate me to stay on top of mail and paperwork (which, as a general rule, I despise), I picked this up the other day at HomeGoods. Hopefully having a pretty place to store obnoxious papers will negate some of my displeasure at dealing with them.

And to improve family communication, I ordered this calendar with storm photography on amazon. Well worth $1.88, I should think! 

I have no grand point in sharing this with you. No end-all epiphany that will make you accept your own character flaws while I try to accept mine. I'm not perfect. No one is. I lose books, leave keys in the door,  and send my kid to preschool with a band-aid for Show & Tell because it was the first thing I saw the trunk of my car.

But I'll keep trying. With a little luck, a lot of practice, and more than a few prayers, maybe I'll get that key in my brain to turn the last quarter of an inch by the time I'm 60. If not, I'll just make it a rule not to take borrowed books on vacations.