Wrap your head with this material...

At bedtime last night, my 10 year-old asked me to stay extra long in his room. He was teary and said he couldn't stop thinking about dying. He couldn't stop thinking that, at the end of his life, he'd feel like it had all gone by so fast that when he died it would all mean nothing. Can you imagine? 10 years old. Full existential crisis. So I held him and stayed extra long. I could tell you the things I said to him, and they were good and they helped. But the truth is, he's got a point. It's one that I don't subscribe to, but I do think his observations are astute and more well-reasoned than a 10-year-old should have to face. His view is a fair one albeit bleak. And the idea that he grapples with it definitely put a large crack in my heart last night.

 Monday I went to pick up our mail at the post office. The postal worker was blocking the path to my box with a giant blue roller bin of packages she was putting into the center aisle lockers so I joked, "if that's blocking the path to my box, does that mean I get a ride in it?" She popped up from behind it and smiled, rolling it out of my way. "I don't see why not," she joked back. I grabbed my mail then looked at the roller bin, looked at her, looked at the roller bin, and jumped on. She pushed me to the end of the aisle and stopped. I giggled away, running into someone I work with on the way to the line to retrieve packages. "Who says the post office can't be fun?"