I'm not terribly bright.

Sometimes, God needs to get Old Testament on me. I mean, none of my shrubbery has burst into flames or anything (mostly because I refuse to weed and we thus have very few things of the plant variety at our house), but there have been many times when I've been listening to the readings or homily and it's like God is screaming, "OKAY IS THIS CLEAR ENOUGH FOR YOU? YOU ARE SO DUMB."

Well, God isn't actually that mean. But other than that...

Like this week, where it's been like a constant battering ram of "omg love your neighbor for reals" and forgiveness and you know what, God? I'm trying, okay?

I'm generally a nice, not-too-bitter person. (Stop laughing, Colleen.) But I do hold a grudge. Like, for a long time. There's this woman at church who I still get angry at every time I see and secretly am thankful that she's old and alone and lives with her parents. She was babysitting a whole group of us when I was seven. My friend's toddler sister grabbed my Little House on the Prairie book and when I took it back this Evil Horrible Bitch Woman took it away from me because she thought we were fighting.

Yes. I'm still mad. Even though the friend and I are juniors in college, his sister is sixteen, and that woman is, again, old and living with her parents.

The last few months haven't exactly lent themselves to personal growth either. Because it's really hard to be forgiving when someone that you love (or loved) deeply doesn't call when your mom gets freaking cancer (again). It's really hard to be forgiving when your whole life seems to be falling apart and you can't believe that theirs isn't too. It's really hard to be forgiving when you feel like a horrible person because you have to smile and pretend on the one day I know I'm going to want to wake up, have a drink, cry, and go back to bed.

As we already established, I'm not good with the forgiveness.

I really need to work on that. But I am listening, God. So maybe for the second half of Lent...