The last couple of Sunday’s I’ve had an intense case of The Sunday Blah’s. By 3:00pm on Sunday afternoon I’ve found myself in a funk of the worst proportions. A downward spiral of crabbiness that I couldn’t seem to shake.
It’s not the looming week that sets me off. I actually love Monday’s. I love the back to school and back to work industry of a Monday morning. Routines and systems in place.
Monday’s make me feel like anything is possible. No dangling carrots are needed. Now Wednesday afternoon, that’s a totally different story. But Monday. Monday is all about making a plan for the week and attacking it head on.
But Sunday evening….lately it’s been a dark time.
I am not a person that likes to be busy every moment. We’ve made a conscious effort not to run our family on a platform of busyness. I am the first to give myself a little space to read or watch a little tv or just sit and stare into the middle distance.
But by Sunday afternoon, the build up of the weekend, the expectations of having fun while crossing off to-do’s, the bickering children, too much staring into the middle distance, leaves me in a panic.
I want to feel calm and fulfilled. I want feel recharged and rested. But I only feel paralyzed and overwhelmed.
Maybe my recent attack of The Sunday Blah’s is a general discomfort of being on the edge of something.
Spring but not quite yet.
A new career project looming a few weeks away and I’m wondering, am I doing enough, how will it work, how will it be?
This on-edge, Sunday feeling has been driving me into my bed with my covers pulled up over my head. Literally.
Looming above me is a cloud of guilt (I should be working harder), doubt (how can I manage a new business and two boys this summer?), and a fair amount of self-pity (no one even cares).
And nothing I do seems to shake this feeling. I’ve tried cooking and cocktails and surrendering to it. I’ve tried napping and meditating and showering it away.
And then on Monday, as I screwed my head back on straight, I had the a-ha moment.
I’m holding on to the traditional calendar week. Trying to work regular hours and then taking a break on the weekend like most of the 9-5 working world. I’m trying to cram a non-traditional work experience into a traditional framework. Of course it’s not working. Of course I’m hit hard by The Sunday Blah’s. The stress of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole is rearing its head.
Working for five days and then hitting pause isn’t what I need right now. I need to let go of the weekend as a non-productive, restorative space and seek out more fluidity over the course of every day of the entire week. I need to pay attention to my cycles of energy and creativity and use them instead of fighting against them.
By Sunday evening, I’m like a damn ready to explode. I’ve been trying to take it easy on myself, a forced bed rest, but it’s been backfiring on me in the worst way.
My a-ha moment: I’m trying to carve out my own unique career experience, and I don’t need to (and shouldn’t) try to jam that into a Monday through Friday work week.
I’m a little worried that work will takeover my life, because I’ve been there before and it’s not so pretty. But this is different and I need trust that I’ve learned the difference between being inspired and being a work addict.
So in the words of the The Dowager Countess of Grantham, What is a week end?
I’m feeling those Sunday Blah’s melt away.
I think you’re right, Kaly. That really shows a lot of self-awareness to recognize what is and isn’t working for you and why. Just follow your gut–I think if you do that all the nitty-gritty details will fall into place as you need them to.
Thanks Stef – do you find that you get your work done in more traditional work/school hours or does it flow over into the nights and weekends too?
Sundays are a time of the blahs for many people for a lot of reasons, but I think you’ve hit on a real isssue. The interesting thing to me is that you stayed with the uneasiness and that awful feeling of being at the edge, and found your answer. It is hard not to panic and run from that sort of feeling – although perhaps the cocktails were a brief sprint in the other direction?! Seriously, the blahs are tough especially when they force you under the covers in the daylight hours. Keeping working at it. Fight tradition for what works for you. Isn’t that what women have always had to do? P.S. There are a lot of people who care.
It’s been such a weird thing for me because I’ve had the Sunday blah’s in the past, but they’ve always been dread for the week to begin and sadness that the weekend is over. And this is like the complete opposite. A friend has been doing a Sunday night yoga class so I might try that to ease the transition and quiet myself a bit.