Lent: My Anti-Drug

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. I'm not completely sure how other Christian sects go about it, but for Catholics like me, Lent is a season of fasting, prayer, and preparation. It's like a spiritual detox for forty days, to represent the forty days Christ fasted in the desert. It's tradition to abstain from meat on Fridays and to give up one's vices in order to focus on developing a closer relationship with God.

What to give up is always a big question. When I was a kid, it was ice cream and pop every year. Sometimes candy as well. My freshman year of college I gave up all unhealthy food to teach myself a lesson about gluttony, since it's one of the seven deadly sins and since I'd been taking way too much advantage of the campus cafeteria's buffet. Last year I tried to curb my addiction to shopping. I kinda failed at that one. Obviously I can't give up all shopping because I do need basic things like groceries, soap, paper towels, et cetera, but unnecessary items I splurge too much on, those I can give up.

So here's my list of what I'm giving up for Lent:

• Buying snacks from the Asian supermarket I work at (I really don't need daifuku, funwariyaki, Pocky, Hello Pandas, etc., and I spend too much money on them anyway)
• Buying new books (except for the new Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong book, since I've been planning to buy that since before I knew the release date)
• Buying candy (I'm going to cut back on eating candy, but giving it up altogether is too much to handle)
• Buying any article of clothing that costs more than $25 (I have lots of nice clothing I love, and I need to stop cutting into my grocery budget for more clothes)
• Buying dolls (which is hard for a doll collector like myself, but like I mentioned above, if I don't have money for bills and groceries, I can't justify buying dolls, as adorable as they are. Except for the Scaris line Ghoulia and Draculaura. I need those two.)
• Buying makeup and beauty products (with the exception of replacing shampoo and conditioner when I run out because those are essentials, but I don't need to buy a fifth bottle of volumizing mousse or a fourth bottle of hairspray, even though the package is so pretty and I really want to try this kind and see how it compares to the others-- No, I must stand firm.)
• Pop
• Cake and cupcakes
• Ice cream (beyond the stuff in my freezer that needs to be used up)
• Writing nasty things in my diary about people I deal with at work
• Passive-aggressive moves in the ongoing war with my roommates, the FBRs (although I'm not sure how long I'll be able to give this one up)

Am I missing anything? I think that's it.

Is anyone else giving up a long, convoluted list of addictions for Lent? Let me know, and we can support each other throughout Lent.

XOXO
Gossip Ghoul.