I grew up going to Catholic school so, for better or for worse, that meant I grew up with a Catholic faith/belief system. Some adjustments have been made to this system as I have grown and, as previously mentioned, adopted some other customs into my own quasi-Catholic faith within myself. One of the things that has remained is my nighttime prayers.
I’ve left the daily Hail Mary’s and Our Fathers that we recited in class behind. But every night, while I transform my bed from my study and reading nook into my enveloping cucoon, I invisibly perfrom a ritual started when my age was in the single digits. You can’t tell by looking, because I say it in my head, and while lying down. But sometimes I smile.
Every night I talk to God, or the Creator, or sometimes the Universe. My definitions of what this being is may differ from yours, but that’s the gist of it. It starts off like this: “Thank you very much for today and everything that happened.” This can be a hurdle after a craptastic day, but here I remind myself that hey—I’m not suffering in the Sudan or something so get over it. “Thank you for my mum, and I pray she can move beyond her sadness and anger because she so deserves it. Thank you for picking me to be her daughter.” Cuz when I think about it, maybe our birthing order is a randoom draw, but maybe it’s selected, I don’t know. What I do know is I am so lucky to be here with her for a mum. Again, it could always be so much worse, even if she drives me crazy one day. I am thankful for my Dad and usually wish for him to be happy on his own two feet. I’m glad that he is always fun to hang out with. I then am thankful for my brother, and am so proud of who he is, what he is capable of giving to this world. I am thankful for my little sister who, at this awkward junior high school phase, I wish confidence in herself and her abilities. I am then thankful for my grama and Boompa who, at 80 and 93 respectively, are still going storng. I wish that for me too!
“Thank you so, so, so much for ___.” (Insert boyfriend’s name there). “Thank you so much that we have each other to make sense of it all, thank you for how me makes me feel and thank you for what we share.” I also ask for help celebrating the good times and working through the tough ones. I have a deep-rooted belief that sometimes fate, as in the case of he and I, is so powerful it is hard to ignore. I know we’re forever, and I’m so thankful. I’m also thankful for his family. I know if they weren’t so welcoming, warm and quirky, ours would be a very different story.
Then I am thankful for my friends. I am so thankful I have them to count, and I hope that I can be able to give them as much as they give to me. I am so lucky to have them. I usually go through them by name and pray they’ll pass their exams, get over that jerk-off guy and believe in themselves the way I believe in them. I’ve heard we can be lucky to have one best friend. Wow- am I ever lucky then to have all of them.
Then I usually say thanks for my health. I know that out of the billions of people on earth suffering, I have been chosen to be healthy, and given the ability to take good care of myself. I have been given gifts, talents and privileges that many others do not have. It is then that I pray I can fulfill my role here. That I can use what I have been given to make this a better place. This makes me very happy and gives me renewed hope. It reminds me that the broken photocopier and the looming hydro deadlines are inconsequential. Sometimes I hate journalism school, and sometimes I hate my family, but I have been given these skills and these people for a reason beyond myself. I hope I can do what I’m supposed to.
Then I usually say a little something to the people close to me who have died. Don’t know if they are listening, but it makes me happy to know they may have a hand in watching over me. I wish them peace.
If I make it this far without already falling asleep, I usually take a deep breath in and then out, content at all I have been blessed with and in spite of the things I have no right to complain about (except to boyfriend and girlfriends) like family and money trouble. (Because really, I am blessed). It’s not a Catholic-specific practice but it’s my own ritual I’ll keep on, even at the end of the worst of days.