“He uses ‘Lenten’ as if it’s a synonym for fuck. ‘Those mother-Lentens.’”
--Jon Stewart, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
I always have difficulty deciding what I want to do for Lent. The thing is, I have enough Catholic guilt that I want it to be something good, so God will know I’m really trying. On the other hand, I don’t want it to be something that’s going to disturb my lifestyle too much.
When I was in school, I gave up chocolate and other forms of candy as well as—the most painful of all—Doritos. In college, I tried to go for what my mom called “lifestyle changes.”
For instance, four years ago, while on the phone with my friend Kim, I was having a rough time deciding what it was I was willing to do.
“What are you giving up for Lent?” I asked her.
“It’s Lent? Oh, shit!” she cried. Thinking it over for a moment, she decided, “Swearing.”
So that year, we attempted to give up swearing.
But here’s the thing: my heart wasn’t in it. I knew that secretly, it didn’t matter if I gave up swearing or not because I’m so unaffected by my swearing. I let the words fly fast and loose and never feel guilty about dropping the f bomb.
I do feel guilty about other things I indulge in, like the rivers of pop I consume daily or the time I spend feeling guilty about things.
So the next year, while I was student teaching, I gave up pop. And it worked. I drank lots of water instead, and had to pee at the end of every class period, but I totally did it. I kicked that caffeine addiction in the butt.
But as soon as Lent was over—well, actually, as soon as I was done student teaching, I started drinking pop again. Look, I rarely drink and I don’t smoke, so drinking pop and driving above the speed limit are my two concessions to a wild and crazy life. (Although after two speeding tickets in the last two years, I’ve given up speeding as well.)
I don’t even remember the last two years. I probably did something like: I will attempt to drink more water. That’s one of my favorites because I drink so little water that if I get a two-second drink at the water fountain between classes, that’s probably more water than I drank the day before. It’s a win-win situation … unless I specify that I will drink X many glasses of water a day. Then I usually fail and consequently have to worry about my eternal soul.
I do, however, prefer the lifestyle choices over the deprivation. It’s not that I don’t have willpower—I totally do. But, I have to be motivated to follow through, and I so rarely am. I mean, who CARES if I give up M&M’s for forty days. After those forty days, I’ll just start eating them again, because there’s no reason NOT to.
But, with the lifestyle change, there’s a chance it will stick. They say you have to do something everyday for a month for it to become habit. And we all know how hard it is to break habits (see above paragraph about caffeine and pop).
So when I was talking to Kim this year, I asked again, “What are you doing for Lent?”
“I’m no longer sweating the small stuff,” she answered promptly.
It was so obvious in its simplicity, I immediately started laughing.
“Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll go one more. I’ll give up the stuff that I sweat about.” Of course, this wasn’t really an option because I was supposed to be hosting speech contest this year, yet again, and the ONLY way I get through that it by allowing myself to be stressed and to cry and feel complete rage over it. Why would I want to deprive myself of the one source of enjoyment I get out of it? (That would be the rage. If I’m not stressing out about it, there would be no need for the rage either.)
“Come on,” she persisted. “This would be a good goal! We can call each other every day” [this was NOT a selling point] “and counsel each other through it. Come on! It’ll be fun.”
I thought this was questionable, but I found myself agreeing anyway.
After hanging up, however, I changed my mind. I wanted to improve myself, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that by giving up all things stressful. You know, sort of how nicotine addicts don’t want to give up cigarettes even though they know that they’d be happier and live longer and all that. I thought not sweating the small stuff would be a good Lenten goal for Kim, so I amended my goal to: helping Kim through her Lental goal.
I still needed one for myself, however.
It was while I was knocking back my third diet Sunkist Lemonade of the day and thinking about my favorite author’s blog that I finally hit (almost simultaneously) on my two goals.
1) Cut back my pop intake to only two pops a day. (I told you, I have no motivation for the self-deprivation thing.)
2) Write every day. Even if it’s just a paragraph.
So how is it going, you ask? Well … I’ll keep you posted.
P.S. Special shout-out to my sister for inspiring me to (as she put it in her last email to me) "Put some of this Lent writing on your blog! Or not, whatever, but guess what? I'm getting tired of When Marian Sang. Yeah, that's right, I said it. No one ever blogs and it irritates me."
