If tomorrow starts lent, then Easter is coming....

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the day that for Catholics starts the season of Lent, which is the 40 days before Easter, considered to be a time of reflection and sacrifice, including fasting and abstaining from meat on Fridays, as preparation for Easter.

I'm not the world's most devout Catholic - if anything, I would describe myself as a cafeteria Catholic - I pick out the practices and teachings I like and ignore the rest. Which probably defeats the whole point of religion, of following beliefs that are bigger than yourself. But I haven't been able to convince myself to be entirely devout, or to give it all up and believe in nothing. So I'm somewhere in the middle.

I do try to at least keep up with some of the rituals, which include not eating meat on Fridays. I guess it's a mix of Catholic guilt, tradition, and figuring that if I can't at least do that, I'm pretty weak. I'm not big into the whole giving something up thing, although last year I tried to give up, well, let's just say a certain type of film. I think I made it 5 days, which is actually an accomplishment for me. Maybe I'll try again - not so much giving it up as cutting back on it.

While I'm not looking forward to choosing between veggie burgers, pasta, or fish sticks for Friday night dinners, I am actually kind of glad it's Lent. Because it means it's 40 days until Easter. Easter is synonymous with spring, and it's freakin' cold outside. We've had a couple very warm days, which were complete teases, like a girl who flirts with you and then tells you she's married. They've only served to make the rest of the days, where the temperature hovers somewhere between Antarctica and Meat Locker, even more miserable. Not to mention that I've spent more on heat last month than I spend on food, and I love food (and still find the need to wear socks to bed and sleep under 3 blankets and a cat).

In addition to being cold, I've been pretty stressed and miserable, given my complete lack of a social or dating life, the fact that everything I own seems to be breaking at once, the giant pile of responsibilities I've taken on at work, and the overall shitty condition of the economy (and of my own finances, thanks to cuts in overtime). Of course, warmer weather will solve none of these problems, but it will make me feel better - which at least might make these problems seem less looming, or maybe make me feel more empowered to figure out action to take to solve them.

And even if it doesn't, at least I'll be able to wear shorts, not have my hands bleed from being chapped, and not get almost faint opening my BGE bill. So that would be an improvement.