This Lent I Confess the Sins of Adulthood

We live in a very expedient society, and maybe that’s our fault. We’re always in a blind hurry to get there, to get it done, to have it made, to call you back – all so we can get at least 15 minutes of rest.

Expediency has become our rate of passage.

We become competent members of society when we learn to email.  Privacy has become a matter of callaer I.D. and intimacy has been reduced to a plastic y que Dios the bendiga (May God bless you).

Years ago, in the less complicated days of the endless Laredo summers, I was a mortal sin.

It was in the list the nuns handed out in preparation for our annual Lenten confession; a list of sins to be confessed in whispers to a voice on the other side of a small trap door, like the ones used by speak-easy bouncers in gangster movies. Adultery, it was listed between killing and coveting thy neighbor’s goods.

I dreaded growing up, but I was curious to find out how one could commit a state of being.

I was a distracted young man and had managed to mumble my way through most of my confessions. The day I spoke up was a day of almost profound understanding. “¿Cuales son tus pecados, hijo?”, (which are your sins?) the cassocked-bouncer asked. I was in a hurry. “Todos padre,” (all of them) I replied.

In the movies when the trap door was slammed shut it meant that you weren’t going to get into the speak-easy. During Lent it meant that you were escorted to the back of the line, to ponder your majaderia (your insult).

Given time I was able to construct an impressive list of stains upon my soul, so when it was once again my turn to face father Santoyo, the bouncer, I was ready.

“I have sinned father. I have lied, I have stolen, I have been disrespectful to my parents, I made skinny Daniel from the neighborhood cry and I smoked two cigarettes.” “¿Es todo, hijo?” (Is that all, son?) “Si padre, I haven’t committed adultery because I am not yet an adult.”

I’m not sure what the consequence was, because I never had the guts to ask, but I think I may have been excommunicated at the ripe old age of eleven.

I’ve since grown up and learned to be efficient. I’ve committed the sins of adulthood. And this Lent I intend to make amends.

I’ve at times taken myself too seriously. I’ve had to remind myself to smile and I’ve let myself be taken by the powerful stream of what everyone else is thinking.

I’ve driven from my work to my house and not remembered any of the places that I passed. I’ve let idiots anger me, and I’ve let anger make me feel like an idiot.

I have, at times, been afraid to be kind, and I have, at other times, suspected someone else’s kindness. I have seen how the world around us seems to respond at the flick of a switch and have deduced, albeit for a fleeting moment, that humanity is in ultimate control.

I’ve spoken on the phone to my kids who call form college and wonder how it was that they grew so fast.

And I’ve stood in front of my morning mirror, tooth brush in hand, and have seen in my eyes the gaze of a boy, whispering to a trap door “I have committed, padre, the sins of a hurried, distracted adulthood.”

Follow Victor Landa on Twitter: @vlanda