Today is Fat Tuesday!
The one day when every single one of us, regardless of weight , size, or level of body dysmorphia, stand up proud and strong and say, “As God is my Witness, I will never diet aga—“
What?
Really?
Well, crap . . .
Every year at Lent, we of the Wednesday Forehead Smudge Crowd get another chance to reinforce those New Year’s resolutions we blew before the ides of January.
So we store up as many calories, cigarettes, reality TV programs, romance novels, LOLcats, or whatever is bad for us—or we’re told is bad for us—hoping that indigestion, hangovers, or sleep deprivation will help carry us through the first couple of days, as if discomfort counted as a virtue.
And we give up one or more of those things until Easter comes and we dive headfirst into a kiddie pool full of unwrapped Cadbury Eggs, or whatever your personal fantasies might entail, to make ourselves sick on unleashed suppression.
Or we take the other route and we try to form habits, instead of breaking them. Like writing X words or for Y minutes a day. Editing a chapter a day. Eating five fruits and/or veggies, eating breakfast, yoga for twenty minutes, using the exercise bike for thirty. And we hope we’ll keep doing those things well past the season, though usually what we get is more guilt.
But anything’s better than self-reflection, right? Anything’s better than indulging in fifteen minutes of stopping everything and paying attention to ourselves—real attention, not instant gratification or resentment. But just . . . checking in.
Looking for changes (good or iffy) in our core belief systems, seeing if we can take someone off our $#!% Lists today, feeling the feels (good or bad) and allowing the memories (good or bad) and forgiving ourselves for surviving all the embarrassments of our lives and for things we’ve done and left undone and also for having Cadbury eggs for breakfast to get through it all.
And maybe, once or twice, actually standing up proud and strong and saying, “As God is my Witness. . .” or just sitting quietly and being okay with being ourselves for those fifteen minutes out of the 1440 we have.
Well, crap.
Guess I know what I’m doing for Lent.
But pass the pancakes and chili cheese fries, anyway. And lob over a couple of those Cadbury eggs—the caramel ones.
‘Cause self-reflection is waaay easier on a full stomach.
Earful of Cider 