Lent Week 1.5

Nope, haven't died yet.

Surprisingly, I haven't been all that bored yet, either.  My Netflix withdrawal peaked last Friday when I came home from work and wanted to do nothing but lay on the couch with my cat and watch a rom com that would make me feel bad about myself later, but since then, it's been fairly quiet and easy.  Turns out all those years that I didn't watch TV because I didn't want to pay for it was good practice for this very moment.

For those who aren't particularly knowledgeable in the ways of the Lenten season, Lent is a 40-day period of sacrifice and simplicity that is meant to bring our awareness back to God and prepare to celebrate his death and resurrection.  Sure, meatless Fridays isn't much of a sacrifice for New Orleanians. (I'm forced to eat delicious seafood once a week. Shoot.)  But the other sacrifices can be harder.  As a child, I always gave up sweets, which usually ended in an Easter sugar binge so great that I unfailingly felt sick on the ride home from my grandparents' house.  As a teenager, I gave up things like biting my nails, which I still unfortunately do today, but it did temper how frequently I willingly put bacteria into my mouth.

As an adult, Lent has become my months-late new year's resolution (even though it's not meant to be).  January 1st is a day that I sit around and shake my head at all the people wasting money on gym memberships that'll only get used for a week, but come Ash Wednesday, it's my turn to plan all the things I'm going to do differently.  Unlike all those secular suckers, though, I stick to my Lenten resolutions because God is watching, and guilt gets shit done.

Since giving up Netflix, I've returned to my normative state as a person who cannot just lay around and must be doing something at all times.  I've read two and a half books.  I've written and revised at least twenty pages and two blog posts.  I painted my back steps and railings.  I got the baby squirrel out of my attic (alive).*  I hung decorative ironwork in my backyard.  I cleaned the house.  I even broke my washing machine!  (Or maybe the cat did that.  That's still unclear.)

I've also been waking up a half hour early every day to do yoga and bike to work, which isn't really related to Lent at all but rather related to something an administrator told me two Fridays ago.  It wasn't the first time I'd heard it, actually.  In December, a coworker pulled me aside during a wedding reception and told me he was worried about how stressed I was (I only heard about a fourth of what he said over the music and talking, but I got the gist).  In January, a custodian was cleaning my room and attempted to very carefully word his concern about how uptight I seemed.  But men regularly think things about women that aren't true, and so I completely ignored them.  When my female administrative supervisor (whom I respect greatly) brought it up in my mid-year conference, though, I immediately made changes.

Since beginning daily yoga, I feel more flexible, I get better sleep, I smile more, and best of all, I don't want to murder people or shred things or cry at the drop of a hat.  It's awesome.  My therapist thinks it's a sign that I just need more daily exercise than I was getting, and I think that if this is what daily exercise does for my body, then I might have actually liked high school if I'd exercised every day.  Instead, I was moody all the time, and my brother would shout "Go eat some peanut butter!" at me when I'd get to be too much (we'd read that protein was a mood-booster).  I desperately needed anything that would sort out the toxic mix of anxiety, stress, growing pains, and hormones that were coursing through my body.  I was the model teenager in many ways, but that still didn't mean I was easy to live with.

Thirty days remain in the Lenten journey, and I'm looking forward to further get-off-my-assery and all the good things that will come from it.  My cat's not as excited about the reduced couch time, but he does enjoy laying in my lap while I write and attacking my yoga mat at less than opportune times, so he's fairly entertained.  I have a feeling this will be good for both of us.




*Technically, the exterminator got the squirrel out of the attic.  But I did hand him the empty live trap and pay for the visit, so I'll claim credit.

Tis the (Lenten) Season

I've been having trouble getting things done recently, and it's all due to this terrible feeling called "just not wanting to."  Sure, I'm a pretty self-disciplined person, but when "who cares if it happens" hits, it's pretty hard to fight back.  I can only imagine that it's somehow similar to how my ex-"friend" felt everyday when he could have exercised or read a book or bettered himself in any way, shape, or form, and instead chose to smoke multiple joints and drink 2-3 beers on his porch with people ten years his junior.  Except that my respiratory and digestive health are generally unaffected by this recent languor, and I still manage to get shit done like going to doctor's appointments or committing to...anything.

Not that I'm still bitter, of course.  I'm totally great.  I've moved on.  Hooray, me.

What is affected, however, is my writing.  Just about anything will keep me away.  Those dirty dishes in the sink?  Can't possibly leave them for another second.  This puzzle book I can't figure out?  Has me completely rapt.  This article on the benefits of vegetarianism?  Must click, even though I'd rather die than give up pepperoni (then again, it'll probably give me cancer in the long run, so we'll call it even).  Yesterday, I didn't even have a reason to procrastinate.  I set my microwave timer to an hour and a half, and then half an hour later proceeded to decide that I just didn't feel like writing anymore.  I even negotiated with myself that I would write later in the day, and then I didn't do it.  Didn't even think about it.

The real snake of Eden,* though, is Netflix.  Boy, do I love me some Netflix.  Over the last week, I've probably spent twenty hours on my couch watching Netflix.  I can't even stop saying Netflix, I'm so addicted.  Even when I can't find a single thing I want to watch, I still watch Netflix.  I think, "Well, two and a half stars really isn't that bad," and then I waste two hours on a really horrendously bad movie that probably didn't even deserve a single star.

Thankfully, the crest of dawdling has crashed at just the right time.  Mardi Gras is over, and Lent is here.  Time to give up all that shit I really shouldn't be eating or doing anyway (like saying shit more than once in a blog post), and refocus on what's important.  Time to combat procrastination and drive away the shadow of sloth that has settled over my intellect and killed countless brain cells.  Time to give up Netflix.  Sure, I'm a little nervous that I'll have nothing to do and someone will find me on the floor in a few days, my dehydrated cat licking the glazed eyeballs of my over-bored skull.  But I'm also hoping that the time not spent watching the fictitious lives of Parisian talent agents--or the fictitious lives of anyone--will be time spent on more productive things like fixing up my backyard and planning my summer travels and actually sitting down and revising my book, which is taking forever because I keep putting it off.

I'm also giving up online dating because it's terrible and time-consuming and depressing, and I just can't do it to myself anymore.  But that has really nothing to do with Lent or sloth.  On the bright side, though, I do expect it'll free up some time, so if I die an old maid, I'll at least have time to write about my cat.  Am I right?



*I know snake of Eden isn't a saying, but I just kind of want it to be, and now I've committed to using it even though it doesn't sound quite right.  Please forgive my improper use of prosaic license.