Sacrifice

Last Wednesday marked the beginning of Lent, a time when many people choose to "give something up"; to abstain from something or some habit or some vice in our lives, until Easter arrives. The hope is that rather than turn to these things or habits or vices, we turn to prayer, mediation, acts of kindness/charity instead, and embrace these small "sufferings" and await the inevitable transformations that become of it. Honestly, I've not always been a big fan of the "giving something up"- I don't usually feel convicted one way or another, and I feel like a decision to truly sacrifice something ought to be done with strong conviction and should be heartfelt and meaningful. Truthfully, I wanted to avoid committing a personal "Lenten tokenism".

As a kid growing up, we were forced EVERY YEAR to give up TV watching. Which was okay for the most part, except that wouldn't you know it- EVERY YEAR the Oscars would happen during Lent season, and I'm pretty sure I was the only girl in the whole world who didn't get to see the glamor unfold on the red carpet, or see acceptance speeches, or swoon over live footage of Tom Cruise and Kevin Costner in tuxedos. I might still be carrying around a little bitterness over it. I promise never to do this to my children unless they're in a phase of severe misbehavior and I need a decent bribe to get me through til Christmas time.

And then I got the bright idea (and conviction! and excitement! and passion!) to give up my two favorite past-times: eating sweets and drinking wine. That's right. I am now on a heavily restricted no-sugar diet (because I still eat fruit and I sometimes use a little honey to sweeten my sad, plain yogurt) and a complete lock-down no-alcohol diet (because I'm crazy). I was really excited about this because it's a win-win no matter how you look at it. Anything I can do to supplement the hard work I've been doing in the gym over the last 3 months is only going to encourage me further, and I've given something up that has truly been a sacrifice. I wanted to choose something meaningful, and by golly- sugar & alcohol have always held a special place in my heart. It's made me aware of all the other things I can be doing with my time, my body, my mind in lieu of ingesting sugar or alcohol. It's also made me aware of how much I adore unwinding with a glass (or two) of wine.

I won't lie, it's been...difficult.

Day 1, I had one of the worst headaches of my life. I'd like to think it was an unrelated headache, because it's not like I eat doughnuts and drink shots of vodka from sunrise to sunset or anything. How the heck could I be "withdrawing" so quickly? Was this a head game (pun intended)? The headache lingered all day long, tempting me to just call the whole thing off, throw in the towel, run down to the closest 7-11 and buy myself some M&M's and a bottle of sauvignon blanc. But I'm actually quite fond of this challenge because I know that I can do it. When I think of how many more instances I'm going to have a craving for one or both things, and how many instances I'm going to have to resist the temptation and find something else to do, I cringe. But when I look at it one day, one hour at a time, I feel strengthened and even more passionate about this commitment.

43 days to go. If I don't blog for a few days, it means I cracked under pressure, gave up on the commitment and I'm too ashamed to say so.