Lazy Weekends are Hard Work

It is a quiet Saturday morning. On my table are a fragrant cup of coffee and my favourite cookie. On my laptop is the wallpaper of a far-off land, somewhere with woods and lakes and song-birds, far away from the heat and grime I can sense is building up outside. Since it is a weekend morning, the housing society seems fairly quiet; utensils aren’t clanking in kitchens, and cars aren’t speeding off to offices and colleges.

At this time of the weekend, I feel lovely. The day stretches out lazily in front, full of potential. Yes, there are to-do lists to get through. (Thanks to my obsessive tendencies, these lists are often extremely detailed and super long.) But surely we don’t need to get on with them yet. I can soak in the quiet of the morning for a little longer as the day wakes up properly…

By the afternoon though, a need to “rest” catches up on me. After the initial solace of the drowsy morning, the day inevitably proves to be packed. Weekends have to be fulfilling, right? Weekends are when you get to do all the nothing you wanted to throughout the week but had to put off. You are supposed to relax, unwind, let your hair down. And to achieve all these lofty goals, I often end up over-scheduling things.

Let me give you an example. If I sit back and put my feet up, I feel I could have utilised my time better had I taken up that weekend course, gone for that workshop, said yes to that spa day with the girlfriends. But when I am out doing some of these things, I have a greater sense of time slipping past…precious time from my restful weekend that was supposed to have progressed at a snail’s pace. By the time Sunday evening comes along, I have no idea where the weekend disappeared.

“Did it really happen?” I ask R. “Or was it an illusion?”

He arranges my to-do lists on the table, half-read books, study notes, prints of e-mails I gave in to answering, and call logs.

I don’t say anything.

Lazy weekends are hard to achieve. But in our crazy lives, we need them more than ever. On my more “successful” weekends, I find that one thing works best: putting away my gadgets. You don’t need to plan every hour or watch the clock ticking away. It is better to read a physical book than the Kindle book you read every day while commuting. It is perfectly okay to say an impulsive yes to plans you wouldn’t normally have considered and let some errands remain undone. Likewise, it is beautiful just to be, staring at the distance and watching the view change from a sleepy morning to twilight, when streetlights go aglow, and the world celebrates the fact that hey, tomorrow is a Sunday.

Wishing you a happy weekend! May you get to relax as much as you like, for you certainly deserve it!

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I am taking up the April #AtoZChallenge 2019 and will post every day of the month, except Sundays. I look forward to your company!

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