Bless me, Father, for I have Bad Habits.

January 28, 2024

I bite my nails. Terrible habit, my nails are paper thin and my cuticles destroyed. I have been working on correcting it for a while now. It started when I entered elementary school. I was anxious, so I started biting my pencils, until my parents scolded me, thus I took it to my nails. I have been anxious for a long time, I had night terrors in middle school, it was a chaotic time of change. Later on I had anxious episodes when I went to university, being away from home and meeting all these new people terrified me. But I overcame it, I became a planner and even transformed into an open and talkative person. Now, I just bite my nails, but I’m taking care of them now. However, that’s the lesser of my transgressions. 

I must come clean and admit that I’m obsessive. Usually obsession tends to last 3 days, where I dream, eat and sleep the object of fixation, then it fades away. If it survives the three days, it means it's going to stick. For instance, I became fascinated with Italy, so I decided to learn the language and the culture, now I know enough to make a proper visit. 

My latest infatuation? Tennis, it has been going on for about five or six months, which means is getting serious. So severe in fact that I even learned to play. My mom lives in a different city due to work, and there are tennis courts and classes, so I worked some overtime, saved money and planned a visit to learn. It's both easier and harder than what I expected, I have around 12 hours of classes under my belt, I play left-handed even though I mostly write with my right, but my best weapon is my double-handed backhand. Nowadays, I only think about it once a day while practicing my toss.

I believe I also deserve penitence for my slothful ways. An eternal procrastinator, fulfilling all types of tasks to avoid the one at hand. I work in bed, it’s out in the open now, it’s better for my back. I work out at the gym because I am too lazy to go for a run. Not only that, but I tutor my sisters because I was too tired to do their homework for them, I paint because I was too shiftless for violin, I take the dogs on walks, because I don't like playing in the backyard. I’ll take the penance after doing the laundry, I promise.

In addition to these abhorrent habits, it’s the fact that I self-isolate, I push the world away to become a creature constantly caught up in deep thought, in profound observation of the world, in endless conversation with one self, overthinking about others humanity and always meditating in solutions for the most trivial of dilemmas. I’ll make an effort to avoid this, to make more connections, to share these thoughts and to improve my surroundings. 

Nevertheless, it is time to speak about the ghastly habit that has tormented my existence. The thing that makes me feel that I might have taken a wrong turn in life, I have a tendency for the dramatic. Maybe I should have been a dramaturge or a thespian, it certainly could fit me better. I remember when my most precious companion died in my arms, I fell to my knees and asked for help, for compassion from the gods, but nothing happened, I lost my pet, my friend when I felt like the world was against me, was gone. But with this melodramatic inclination, I festered the ideal conditions for depression, and it grew and grew, exacerbated by the pandemic and graduating from university in the middle of it. I was lost, sad, and hopeless. Then it occurred to me that I couldn’t continue living like that, so I made a crazy decision: I asked for help. I went to therapy and did all the work, you can say it was my heroes journey. And to no one's surprise, I dramatically got better and better. It has been the case for almost two years now; that’s when I finished taking therapy and my family and I moved to a different city. 

So I ask for absolution. I am sorry for my bad habits. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have acted against me, whom I should love above all things. I firmly intend, with your support, to embrace the future, to act more, to love more, and to continue in the pursuit of whichever path that leads me to these improving practices. Amen.