fasting

The television is always on. It is the background noise during my days at home with Aidan. I watch enough ER reruns that I think Aidan's first words will be "get me 10 cc's of lidocaine, stat!" When Jason gets home, we watch Friends. We feed Aidan to the sounds of Charles Gibson and the nightly news. We eat dinner in front of the TV, or at the dinner table, looking over the couch to the TV (with the volume turned louder to compensate for our distance). We watch the primetime line-up for the night, or pop in a DVD. We almost always watch Family Guy at ten. And then the same pattern happens again the next day. Lather, rinse, repeat.

One of my friends only recently acquired a television set because she married a guy who owned one. Before then, she read books. Talked to friends. Had quiet time. Ate dinner and had meaningful conversation with her dinner guests. I imagine she still does that now, as she is still not a TV watcher. It really all made sense to me, but I just thought I liked seeing Monica, Chandler, Joey, Rachel, Phoebe, and Ross too much to give mine up.

And then on our date this past Friday, it just sort of hit me: I wanted to break away from the TV. It was probably inspired during date night, because when we are on date night, in a restaurant without TVs, sitting in the back of the truck at the beach, or even in the jumble of commotion at Disney, we have the best conversations. It's one of those perks when you marry your best friend, those excellent chats. But we don't have them as much at home, mostly because I think we're both more interested to see who gets kicked off The Biggest Loser than to really go into deep conversation.

Plus, I'm sitting here in amazement at how fast Aidan is growing up - two months old already! - and since I'm facing the return to work in just a few weeks, I don't want any moment with him to be wasted. I decided he deserved our full attention when we're with him, instead of dividing it between him and, say, Lennie Briscoe, Peter Griffin, or Dwight Schrute.

So this week, we're fasting. The TV is being turned off. No TV, no movies, nothing. And I predict one of two scenarios will happen: we will either reconnect with each other in fabulous new ways, deepen our walk of faith, and discover just how little we need that box... OR we will go certifiably insane and just stare at each other, drooling and glassy-eyed until the following Monday when we can end our fast.

Either way, it should be interesting.

So if you see me this week, and I'm just a little off: voice trailing off mid-sentence, foaming at the mouth, or else babbling incessantly about how I think saving the cheerleader will save the world, well... I guess just drive me to the nearest Best Buy and park me in front of the largest HD TV you can find there. Take away my credit card first, of course.