Sunday Already?

I don't know how I managed to miss yesterday. It's just been Alayna and I all weekend, because Hayden has been on staff duty all weekend. It's been nice because she really does have a lot to say, and some very formed opinions for a four and a half year old. It's absolutely astonishing to me that she is going to be 5 this year. She is so intelligent and nothing bothers her. She goes into a store and has no problem screaming how much she loves mommy. Why are we so conditioned that things like that aren't okay. I immediately looked at her and said "Mommy loves you too, but you can't yell like that". She didn't understand why she couldn't tell me that as loud as she wanted, and to be honest I kind of hesitated and asked myself the same question. 

I've managed to take a lot away from her when she speaks. I worry about her every day, and what society is going to do to change her when she gets older. I've worried about it since the day she came into this world, and maybe even before then. I recently had the opportunity to look back on some of my grade school and high school photographs, and I looked at them and thought how thin I looked. However, everyone called me "fat" (I hate that word), so I took on that visual representation of myself. I think it has a lot to do with how I am now. I think it especially attributes itself to why I am shut off as I am. Because I can remember how mean people could be to me. I don't want Alayna to experience those pains, and I especially don't want her to be the one inflicting that pain on others. At the end of the day I know she is such a beautiful soul, that I don't think she is capable of hurting like that. 

I'm not sure what the point of today's post was, my mind has been in a million different directions these last few days. But what I do know is that part of my Lent giving was to let go of my past, and I believe in the last few days I have done a really good job of that. It's been difficult, but I'm almost 26, I think it's time to let go, and forgive. So it shall be. And I shall be at peace for the first time, in a long time.