Oh Crap! – Musings of an Unperfect Mommy

Rituals

October 19, 2013

I can’t believe I have not written on this topic yet! Well, that changes TODAY. I have had rituals since I was a teen, but I find myself without one these days. I don’t know why either and I think it’s time to revisit all of that and find a new ritual to get into. I believe it’s something I actually need to feel whole – more me. I did find that when I searched through my posts for something on rituals that the word “spiritual” showed up a lot – because “ritual” is part of it (why haven’t I figured that out before?). So, I guess my soul needs this particular thing.

One of my earliest rituals was the way I got ready for school dances. Everything had to be done a certain way and by a certain time. I felt that if I did that it would be a good luck charm of sorts and that everything would be hunky dory. Yeah, that never worked. I did these kinds of things a lot when I was younger as a way of warding off bad stuff, but that wasn’t the problem. My problem was really self-esteem and only that could be worked on from the inside. But at 12 years old I couldn’t know that. And at 50 years old I’m still working on it.

Later on, I decided to have a Lazy Saturday Ritual. I stayed in bed until 10am then got up, dressed, etc. and made myself a breakfast of eggs and toast. I don’t think I kept that one up for more than a month or two – probably had to do with the eggs. I like them, but have to be in a mood for them. I couldn’t stand just hanging around in bed for that long either – HA – now that I have kids it’s what I want to do on the weekends!

There was this one episode in my life that may have been one of the cataylsts for chocolate becoming my BFF. I was about 17 years old and this one rainy Saturday all I did was stay in bed, read a romance novel, and eat a whole bag of little Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Yeah, the whole bag. I couldn’t believe it at the time and I couldn’t believe I had stayed in bed reading that long either. However, I look back on it as one of the most satisfying times of my life!

Okay, back to rituals. After I left home I don’t think I had any rituals except for drinking. I would go out with a friend of mind and get completely wasted. Every time. After the big fallout we had (a really long and painful story) we still saw each other but always drinking. That was one ritual that had to go.

The next ritual I can recall is my coffee in the morning one. That started when Matt, Jeff, and Chris were little. I started drinking those General Foods International Coffees and really enjoyed them in the morning while reading Victoria magazine before the kids got up. That was in the beginning when the coffees were really good and my favorites were Suisse Mocha and the Irish Mocha Mint (which they don’t even have now). Then they started to put a ton of sugar in them and I couldn’t tolerate them anymore so I had to give them up. It was a hard thing to do because I had enjoyed them so much. However, in the fall especially, having a morning cup of coffee to warm up with is still a favorite thing of mine to do.

The next one that I could truly say was an every week have to do it event was my What Not To Wear ritual. It started after I read a book called “The Girlfriend’s Guide to Getting Your Groove Back” by Vicki Iovine. I remember laughing my ass off and wondering what that sound was. Yeah, depression was with me way back then too. Well, that sort of got the ball rolling and so when I saw this new show on tv about fashion I was ready for it. I can’t remember when it was first on, but I know it evolved to Friday nights and I decided to have chocolate while watching it. That ritual hung around a long time, until 2008 when in an effort to cut costs we gave up a more expensive dish package and WNTW was a thing of the past.

Oh, then there was the ritual of going to Borders every Sunday morning after Mass which always meant getting a coffee and 3 Lindt chocolates. I kept that one up until Borders closed (RIP) even after we had stopped going to Mass at that church. This ritual definitely solidified my relationship with my two BFF’s now – coffee and chocolate. Even when we went shopping we closed those trips with Borders, coffee, and chocolate and then on home. I really miss that ritual but especially the bookstore.

I really haven’t had a ritual until the last year or so when I realized how ingrained in me the habit of getting a Starbucks coffee when I went out grocery shopping was. Yes, every Saturday morning I do the grocery shopping and I always stop for a coffee or frappucino. Now, this is great if I could just keep it to weekly visits, but this summer when things got really crazy, I started going there a few times a week. So, I need to keep it to one day a week or when I go on trips out of town. But one only even then.

That brings us up to now in which I find myself with no rituals at all. Habits are not rituals and I need to find something that fits in again. Something I can count on in the midst of all the craziness that is mine alone. I’ll let you know when I find one. In the meantime I’ll keep to my shopping and Starbucks ritual. And guess what? It’s Saturday!!

2 comments
Comments

On October 21, 2013 at 12:30 PM, Dan said:

How about a ritual like a morning walk or working through a reading list

On October 22, 2013 at 1:28 AM, java_queen said:

Maybe, but walking sounds more like work and less like a ritual. :-)

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» Rituals » Oh Crap! – Musings of an Unperfect Mommy

Rituals

October 19, 2013

Comments

On October 21, 2013 at 12:30 PM, Dan said:

On October 22, 2013 at 1:28 AM, java_queen said:

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