On Ash Wednesday I was hit with something that had me in bed all day and didn't let me get out of the house until Friday. That means I didn't get ashes... nor did I attend Mass or go to confession. I also hadn't planned on eating chicken on Fridays but my diet is so restricted (I felt terrible on Thursday after unintentionally fasting and getting no protein that day) and I've been sick so I had no choice. I had been looking forward to doing it all "right" but, well, we can't always plan these things to work out in our favor.
From Saturday through Sunday, I traveled. Mom and I went down to San Diego and crossed the border into Tijuana on Saturday. The reason for this was because I had some dental work to be done. We have a family friend who is a dentist and when she heard how much they were charging me (out of pocket) Stateside, she told me to go down and she'd take care of it for me. It turns out I didn't even need one of the root canals the dentists here were pushing... and, really, there was a lot that I thought I needed but didn't actually need. In fact, I didn't even get a single root canal done; she just repaired the chipped molar and did other things that dentists here didn't want to do but were necessary because of how fragile my health has been. (Those were her own words; they were putting me at a greater risk for refusing to fill a big cavity and the chipped molar.) It took us nearly 2 hours just to cross the border (by car) back into the States on Saturday night and then we slept for a couple of hours before we had to get up to get the train back to L.A.
What was supposed to be a day trip turned out to be a 2-day trip because we didn't want to get home after 1 a.m. on Sunday. Two women by themselves, in our part of the county? Um, no, thank you. I'm grateful for Amtrak because I only slept 2 hours on Saturday and 6 on Sunday. Being able to sleep on the train was lovely, even if my neck was hating me at the end of both trips. Also, because of the change of plans, we ended up missing Mass yesterday. We arrived home around 10 a.m. but I crashed after I ate breakfast. I hadn't eaten well on Saturday (and only had about half of the daily recommended water intake) so my body (still recovering from the cold and what hit on Wednesday) needed to crash. Even for evening Mass, I wasn't sure if I would've been okay to drive with my slight lightheadedness and my new toothache (which lasted about 36 hours). I kept drifting in and out of sleep for most of yesterday. I think I may need all of this week for my body and mind to recover. It's an INFP and/or HSP thing, I'm sure.
In between all of that crazy, I failed to pray the Saturday morning prayers in the Little Office and the chaplet of the Divine Mercy before the day ended. I actually fell asleep while praying the last decade of the Rosary on Saturday night. I've also failed to do any of the meditations in my Blessed is She prayer journal... and doing any reading in either Introduction to the Devout Life or Roses Among Thorns, both by St. Francis de Sales.
I've done okay with staying off social media, with the exception being yesterday when I had to log into Facebook to change my password because someone else had logged into it and on Saturday afternoon when I logged into Instagram just to get that location stamp stating that I was at the U.S.-Mexico International Border. I didn't check anything else; I simply changed the password for FB and logged out of Instagram once I had the location stamp on it. I do miss social media, especially Instagram, but I've been able to do a lot without getting lost in the scrolling.
As for giving up talking, it's been hit and miss. I hope that it'll be better now that I'm on Spring Break (early, I know) and the craziness of the trip and having to study for this past weekend's exam (I passed despite only studying for less than a day!) has passed. We do have something special planned this weekend (our young adult group is doing something lovely for Lent) and I know that these people all inspire me to be more mindful of what I say so it'll be good for me.
Do any of you have a hard time getting back on track when your plans get super derailed like mine did over the past couple of days? If so, any tips on what could help get it back on track? I've been struggling with studying (seriously, I had only 1 day to study and memorize for Saturday's exam over the course of 3 weeks due to a number of things that popped up) and now I'm struggling with simply taking some time to pray during the day. Hopefully, I can figure out something during this week of "vacation"... though I don't know how much I'll actually rest because the end of the week is looking crazy busy again. Honestly, sometimes I think God is saying "No, you're still doing too much. Slow down and take care of yourself" when I get this busy.
Anyway, I should get going. I'm still feeling a bit lightheaded (not sure if it's lack of fluids, too much sleep, or an effect from Saturday's dinner when they accidentally added cheese to my plate... after I had explained that I was allergic) and I want to rest for a little while in hopes that I'm well enough to go pick up Mom from work a little later.
I hope y'all are having a good Lent thus far!
As always, thanks for reading and God bless! :D
4 comments:
Hang in there! This seems like such a common trend among different Catholics I know-Lent begins, and suddenly life goes crazy and totally derails your Lenten plans. I've learned from experience, that it's more important to be flexible with God than to try and stick with a particular plan that just isn't working out, because there may be other ways that God is trying to bring about growth. If I'm caught up in how I'm "failing" at Lent, I can tend to focus more on what I want to achieve than what God is actually trying to do in my life-and it's actually more humbling for me to resign my plans to His will than being able to say "Yay! I did my Lenten plan perfectly!" Does that make sense?
So much sense, AnneMarie. It's been a good reminder that I have no complete control over my life and that I should trust that God will help me along the way; that what He has to teach me will help me more than my own plans for myself.
Sometimes we don't even need to plan our penances--they just come to us! Sounds like that's what's happening in your life. Sending prayers!
And how! Thank you for the prayers. :)
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