holy week reflections

I've been thinking a bit about this past Lenten season as we enter Holy Week. I had decided to fast for this go-around, which seemed to me to be a progressive step after giving cookies (junior year, high school) and cursing (freshman year, college). I wish I had a "this is what I learned" story or some sort of inspirational religious moment to share with you, but mostly I was grumpy a lot and ate far too much when I got the chance.

Once I ate a giant carrot cake cupcake from Bennison's instead of a real meal. Another morning, I had a whole tub of leftover curried noodles from Dozika and a homemade muffin. One week, I ate through an entire package of bacon by myself, much to Tyler's chagrin (b/c I didn't share, not b/c he thought I was fat) (at least, that better not be the case). This might not sound remarkable, except that Tyler and I eat together every day except Thursday dinner (he has his sports) and Saturday breakfast (I like to do household-y things on Saturday, like laundry, so we usually don't meet up til evening) so...I covered a lot of bacon in just two meals. I'm holding off my annual check-up until some of that gets worked out of my arteries. So you see, I am not exactly what you'd call a model faster.

In fact, I discovered very quickly that I'm absolutely terrible at fasting. I'm a bit ashamed to say that I broke down the very first day when my cubicle neighbor offered me a box of Girl Scout cookies. I think I fasted for a grand total of 3 hours that day, which is probably slightly less than what a normal person does regularly. I developed this routine where I basically ate breakfast as slowly as possible, stretching out a bag of Quaker Oatmeal squares for 6 hours. So really, it's not so much as fasting, as it is just...eating really slowly...which probably isn't the purpose of fasting, as it is an extension of my natural inclenations.

So over the past week or so, I've tried to be better. (I say this as I eat an apple, which I've been doing for the last hour and a half.) Whenever I get hungry in the afternoons, I've tried very hard to think of why I'm fasting in the first place, to mull over spirituality vs a Snickers bar. Sometimes it works; sometimes I find myself covered in croissant crumbs (snack-blackout is similar to a rage-blackout in that way). But there is a certain sort of lightness and cleanliness and clarity I feel in the late afternoons when I do manage to resist the temptations, which is a nice feeling to strive for. This is the last week of fasting, but I'm actually wondering if I might not do it for a little longer. See what happens.

On an unrelated note, I woke up to a wintry mess falling from the sky. Snow adorned grass and car tops and most of my El stop. Slushy ice grossness covered everything else. All I want to know is: WHY. WHY CHICAGO. WHYYYYYY.