How Can I live this moment beautifully? SUGAR OVERLOAD EDITION

Halloween. Among Christians there can be numerous thoughts on how to celebrate, if to celebrate, whether to shun society’s evil influence and lock up one’s children, attempting to shield them or to delight in their desire to dress up as a devil, ‘oh, it’s only Halloween. If little Suzy wants to dress up like Satan, that is just cute.’

I jest between these two extremes, but in all likelihood, the real evil of our Halloween is one word: CANDY. Apparently, my children have inherited my propensity to have one piece of candy, which then creates a craving akin to the most illicit of substances. I used to call myself a sugar monster. This tendency has long lay dormant, not because of much growth in self-control on my end, but, ironically, in an embracing of sugar and understanding how it is necessary to the body’s functioning. My diet, particularly while breastfeeding, is quite abundant in fruit, orange juice, honey, real maple syrup, bitter dark chocolate, and dairy (when my baby can handle it. Please, God, not another dairy free baby!)

This to say in my experience, sugar is not sugar. Orange juice affects me much differently than a snickers bar. I can have a spoonful of honey in my tea without feeling like I am out of control and need 10 more. What do they even put in this food, anyway?!

For our family, we celebrate and dress up for Halloween. I love dress up in general, being born into a large extended family which mandates certain costumes each night on family reunion vacations. Give me a theme! But on Halloween we appropriately shun our culture’s strange fascination with evil, gore, and the macabre. So, on Halloween this year we set out— a ninja, and two dinosaurs. I usually dress up with the kids, but didn’t want to test whether my baby bump would fit into existing costumes, as my expectation was NOPE.

I wanted desperately to shout to the kind souls handing out candy— “No, really, they do NOT need three. One is fine! It is the same effect!” but alas, the kids quickly filled baskets with pounds and pounds of not only sugar, but whatever other mysteriously addictive substances which we have discussed must be lurking under these pretty wrappers.

Fast forward two days. Like Eric Carle’s hungry little caterpillar, we ate and ate our way through snickers and sour punch straws, skittles, suckers, and more. I was certainly the main offender, and hypocritically was super irritated by my children’s near constant asking for candy, while I myself gave in to basically every craving I had. It seems as though I chose the worst of both worlds, simultaneously attempting to hold boundaries and not allow too much candy, while also in reality hearing the word, ‘This is the LAST one,” come out of my mouth multiple multiple times per day. Alas, the golden mean is often the hardest road to trod.

On All Souls Day, the children were in quite a state. It was a morning in which it seemed the Lord had tasked me to barricade myself like telephone pole in a hurricane, bracing against the onslaught of crying, whining, demands, and misery. On top of that, I realized my own propensity to be affected by this sugar bender. My patience was worn thin by 8am due to a generally irritable mood and marked increase in emotional lability which I attribute to the only thing that had changed— eating 10 (okay, maybe 20) fun sized candies each day for the past several days.

I did have the fleeting thought, directly after discovering what ended up putting me over the top— pen written on several new throw pillows— of ‘how can I live this moment beautifully?’ But, while locking myself in the bathroom in tears (and I am not usually a crier, even while pregnant) the question was not posed in hope or faith that it is truly possible, but almost in an attitude of accusation towards God. “How do you expect me to possibly live this beautifully?!” It is not a surprise that this sort of inquiry perhaps did not effect the same change in me to open myself to grace as I have experienced in the past. And, honestly, that seemed to be the highest moment of clarity that day. There wasn’t a breakthrough or any big feel of redemption. I did not sense that Christ was working out the salvation of the world in and through me. At the end of the day, there was not a sense of surrender and satisfaction, the weariness of a day spent laboring well for the kingdom. I don’t remember what I did— probably spent too much time on my phone, as does seem to be the case especially when in moments of desolation.

But hindsight seems more hopeful. Here is my takeaway from the Halloween sugar bender experience of 2022:

1) I, personally, am a much more irritable person if eating candy. And also, I cannot just have one.

2) Reframing of my children’s behavior must occur. If I chose to give them candy, I must then deal with the natural consequence of their behavior. Candy is addictive and I should expect that when I give my children something addictive, they will act like addicts who then will try anything to get the next piece. It isn’t just ‘bad behavior.’ IT’S ON ME!

3) God’s power is not limited by whether or not I feel it working. I said my morning offering— ‘Oh my Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, joys, works, and sufferings of this day…’ It isn’t my job to evaluate the fruitfulness of how he will use even the most grumpy and seemingly forced offering.

4) Some conversations about candy boundaries surrounding Holidays must occur. I told Brian, perplexed at missing this seemingly obvious fact: every. single. holiday. is overshadowed by everyone feeling like crap due to eating food that is terrible for our bodies. Some treats are okay, but I don’t want to spend my Christmas and Easter octaves (the 8 days after the holiday in which you should KEEP CELEBRATING!) wishing they would end because of everyone’s general grumpiness due to sugar.

So, there you have it. This time is not wasted in which I make a judgement and learn something from even the worst of days.