Fat Tuesday.  Mardi Gras.  Or, for Catholics, “Eat Whatever You Want Because I’m Giving It Up Starting Tomorrow.”

Fewer days of the year are as confusing as Fat Tuesday.  For us Catholics, after we stuff our mouth with Twix bars and swear off sweets for 40 days, it’s a a time of reflection and preparation.  Personally, I came to the same struggle ever year: what to “give up” for Lent so my Easter holiday is more meaningful.

I struggle with this every year.  Supposedly, the sacrifice of giving up something is supposed to help us grow in spiritual union with God.  If framed correctly, we are able to strip down what is excessive in our lives and come to find what is most precious and everlasting: our relationship with God.

I’ve tried year after year to find meaning with giving something up.  And I do it faithfully each year.  But it never means as much to me as other things.  This year, teaching classes on catholicism has given me a gift of renewed faith and a sense of growth that I rarely have experienced in offering up a sacrifice.  Maybe it’s my mentality.  Someone said to me last week, “Think of it less as giving something up and more as making space for what you truly want.”

Making space for what you truly want.

I recently created my own room and I’ve been thinking of what I want to create and build in that room.  I never considered my faith.

So, I made a decision.  I’m not giving up the internet entirely, because that’s not something sustainable that I would be able to sustain after Lent.  But, unless work-related, I am no longer going to use the internet after 9pm.  I can write on my computer, but I will not use the internet in any fashion.  While that may not sound like such a big deal, evening time is typically when I can do what I most want.  Isaiah has laid down for the night, Nick buries himself in his homework, and I am left with a good 2 hours or so to do as I wish.  It’s been so easy to plop into my chair and read updates on Facebook, browse blogs, laugh on Twitter, and google random questions that I’ve jotted down in my notebooks.  I’m taking the internet out of that free time.  I’m hoping that by stripping out the internet in that small period of time, I’ll be able to fill it with things that do more than just pass time.  The hours can be spent reading, curled up in a chair with tea.  Calling people back.  Painting.  Writing poetry.  Going to bed early.  Getting a head start on the next day and cooking for tomorrow.

This spiritual practice is about making time for things that I truly love, instead of doing what is most convenient.  This practice, I hope, will bleed into other areas of my life where I choose the higher road, the path less traveled.  A path, I hope, that leads to a deeper understanding of my relationship with God.