holidays that make you feel like crap (?)

Three occasions I don't usually pay attention to - Valentine's Day, Family Day (here in Ontario), and the beginning of Lent - were all smooshed into the last few days, and they all tried really hard to make me feel like crap. On the 14th, I got a FB wall post from a guy I know saying "happy singles awareness day," my roommates all left me alone to be with their closest kin on Family Day (mine are currently in London, India, and Chicago), and Lent - well, you feel like you have to give up things you love.

I admit, my younger self would have given in to the evil plots of these days. Usually I hate V-day and shrug it off as a mere hallmark holiday, designed only by candy, chocolate, and flower companies to make a quick profit from the foolish and love-struck. In my even younger days i would have spent the day feeling sorry for myself that the only card i got was from my father, signed with, "Don't worry, you'll always be *my* valentine." But as I grew older, cynicism, i thought, was much wiser. Write it all off due to corporate manipulation, as smugness and self-righteousness is much better than loneliness.

As for Family Day, well, this is relatively new in Ontario and I've been away for the last 4 years, so we have no tense history together. But my younger self probably would have been sad that my nieces and nephews live so far away, and my parents were in India, and I don't ever see my cousins anymore, and my grandmother didn't get the last letter I wrote to her before she died.

And lent - well, this would have only conjured up vague and ill-placed sentiments about giving up chocolate, or giving up complaining (in my philosophical-ish days)for reasons I wasn't really sure why. It had no terrible place in my past, but it wasn't really important either.

But happily I am able to report, all three occasions failed in their attempts to drag me down. Tried as they might have, I beat off their efforts with a stick I like to call optimism.

I decided to redeem Valentine's Day by celebrating it's original intention - the people who I love in my life - rather than being sad about the people who aren't or angry at corporate manipulation. So I created a hand-made card for my non-romantic Valentine's Day date Trenko, an old friend from Queen's whom I kinda love to death. We had a good old fashioned date - made dinner, complete with wine, went to a movie, and talked and laughed for hours. Good times! At church the next day I gave out little loli-pop heart flowers, which I also made out of construction paper by hand, thank you very much. Even though a certain someone, who I may or may not have had a crush on at one point, commented that he hated V-day and burned one of the heart petals in the palm-ash fire we had outside (a tradition of the Anglican church, to burn last year's palm Sunday branches in order to get the ashes for Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent). Still, I remained cheery. And when another boy - who, of course, i don't have a crush on - overdid it a little by showering me with candy (my favourite, though - baby sour keys!), a store-bought sickly-sweet and sparkly card, and multiple card-board cut-outs of hearts and cupids, I remained rather calm, un-cynical, and appreciative. Afterwards, Chinese food with a table full of great friends to celebrate the Lunar New Year (also, it was Transfiguation Sunday, how's that for a jam-packed Post-Modern 3-in-1 celebration!) topped the day off with me feeling full and rather contented.

As for family day, I celebrated it with my brother (um, in the Lord) Kyle from Wycliffe, who drove more than one hour to see me and stayed for two nights on our living room futon. We watched multiple episodes of the Office, the phenomenal film Whale Rider, Martyn Joseph and Bruce Cockburn videos, read NT Wright articles out loud, danced to the new Josh Garrels song Zion and Babylon, ate all those sour keys, and made veggie pizza. When a boy called for me (the same one who showered me with gifts - and by the way, cannot speak hardly a word of English, being brand new to Canada from Mexico!) - he answered the phone, and we told him he was brother - perfect! Brother Kyle left after our meditative morning prayer service the next day at 8:08am, and as he drove away I somehow felt like I was part of the greatest family ever.

And now it is the first day of Lent, and this year, it is rather deep and meaningful. I belong now to a church that is very liturgical in it's practices, St. Anne's Anglican Church in Toronto (River is the name of the service - it's very creative and justice-seeking and wonderful). It's liturgical in the sense that it follows the ancient traditions of the Church in order to celebrate the whole story of God in a very rich and symbolic manner. The lectionary calendar is followed, meaning every day, week, and month, pertains to a certain event in the story of God as written in the Scriptures - the Creation, the Fall, the Exodus, the Wilderness, the Waiting, the Exile, the Liberation with the coming of the Messiah, the Crucifixion and Redemption, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Future Hope - so that in one year, you've re-lived it all together as a community. So now we are in the season of Lent - the Wilderness, the Waiting, the Preparation for the Messiah culminating in his surrendered life, at Easter, and subsequent Resurrection, defeating the powers of death, slavery, and exile, and bringing restoration, redemption, and hope to the people of God.

So those are a lot of big words, and even bigger concepts which I am struggling still to understand - the mystery of it all is great. But this year, I am giving up something big in order to prepare myself for Easter - social connectedness, a.k.a, Facebook. It might seem like a silly thing to some, but honestly, for me, i pretty much love being in the loop, connected, wittily bantering with and sharing links and articles and vids and pics with friends. However, recently it's gotten to the point where I waste hours on Facebook, and not always because i want to be "social," but because I basically want to edit and control my image . With a new profile picture, a new quote, another comment here and inside joke there and witty one liner there, I become too obsessed with how I am perceived, that I micro-manage by online image to death. And it's starting to make me feel rather ill. So. I'm going to spend the time more wisely, doing the read and studying like a good seminary student should, and praying for the wisdom to not freakin' care so much about others think, and start caring more about how others are doing.

And so, holidays that would have at one point made me feel like crap, I throw my glass of water (that is now half full) in your face!