The Sunday Fear

Just spent a weekend here in Ballarat, with Karen coming up to visit for the first time. It was a wonderful weekend spent exploring cafes, art galleries and warming up the credit card in quaint clothes shops, secondhand bookstores and craft markets. We spent the evening watching the seriously moving Amour, which is the subject of another post later, I'm sure.

It came time to say goodbye, and we had a long, slightly teary farewell before she drove off towards the city lights and I entered the quiet solitude of my house once more. She had filled it with her raucous laughter and noisy conversation and bustling ideas, she had organised the heck out of the house, she had whipped the kitchen into submission.

And now, devoid of her personality, there is now only the quiet. And the disquiet.

For as long as I can remember, I always suffered from Sunday evening blues. I think I am not alone in this regard - many friends have called it by many other names - 'the Sunday Dread' and more recently, I have heard some Irish friends call it 'The Fear'.

What is this commonality that makes us hate Sunday evenings? Is it the work and school that the week brings ahead for us? Is it because play time is over, and now we must ready our serious faces, our thinking brains, our labored smiles for the week ahead?

I can't explain it. A friend, for example loves his job. Like loves it. And you could see why - he is the perfect fit for his work, and the company ethics and people are all fantastic, and in line with his values. He excels at what he does, and yet, come Sunday evening, the Fear will sit in his heart in an inexplicable way.

I wonder if it has to do with conditioning, and how Mondays always meant school for us growing up. Another week of homework, assignments, difficult teachers, complicated friendships and overwhelming expectations.

And it is an almost universal, potentially irrational dislike for Mondays. I remember the Bangles complaining about Manic Monday and The Boomtown Rats confirms in their song 'I Don't Like Mondays' that they want to 'shoo--oo--oo-oo--oo--oot the whole day down'  and of course, the iconic Garfield comics.



I truly wonder if perhaps it is just a first world problem, where relaxation is confined to the weekends and it's go-go-go the rest of the week.

Personally, having worked shift work in Emergency, I can say that perhaps it really has far less to do with the day of the week than with the actual day your work starts. If I have more than two days in a row off, and then a stretch of work days ahead of me, then the evening before work becomes my new Sunday evening.

Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, and it is a privilege to be able to do meaningful work. I think perhaps sometimes we want to put off putting on the responsible adult clothes just for that little while longer, and hit the snooze button on seriousness, just one more time.

Have a good week ahead, everyone.