I’ve always suffered from Sunday Blues. Even as a child, I remember feeling this little nugget of anxiety on Sundays, coupled with a demented compulsion to try and enjoy myself, to make the last moments of the weekend count. (As anyone who’s ever felt anxious will probably agree, trying to force yourself to have a great time while simultaneously feeling anxious only makes things worse. Why am I still anxious? I’m wasting the day feeling anxious! Why can’t I just stop it? What’s wrong with me?)
I distinctly remember listening to the Top 40 countdown on Radio 1 (tape recorder at the ready for my latest mix tape) and feeling so shitty that the weekend was almost over and anxious about going back to school the next day. Even though I mostly enjoyed school and was one of those annoying good-at-everything nerds (except PE – PE was my own personal torture).
Eventually, I grew up to become a taller, more sweary nerd with a 9–5 job. But still, Sundays would bring the usual mix of over-the-top jollity (‘Let’s do something brilliant today! Let’s Make Sunday Count!!’) and low-level, background dread of Monday. Even though I mostly enjoyed my work. Even though I worked with lovely publishing types. Even though I knew, logically, that Monday would pass by in its usual benign way. I didn’t know what was wrong with me – or if I was the only one who ever felt like that. I just knew it annoyed the hell out of me.
So here’s the big question: do I still get Sunday blues in Bulgaria?
Well, I’m writing this on a quiet Sunday morning. The fire’s blasting, the cats are all asleep on various soft surfaces, Radio 2 is crooning at me (how I miss the days of making mix tapes!), and I can smell the delicious butternut squash and sage lasagne that’s baking in the oven. There’s half a homemade banoffee pie in the fridge, too. I repeat: banoffee pie.
Outside, everything is sparkling white and clean (it snowed quite a bit on Friday). Fat blobs of snow weigh down the huge pine trees on the other side of the river. The sky is postcard blue.
We’ve got nowhere to be: today, tomorrow, this week.
Sure, we’ve got work and a long list of chores ahead. I’m copywriting for a client this week. Rob is laying tiling in the pantry. With four cats and a snowy garden, there’s constant cleaning to do. Big outdoor projects are piling up for the spring and summer. Bills need paying. And God knows what Brexit will mean for us.
But we have no mortgage to pay. No car payments or other debt (I find owning a 22-year-old rust bucket far preferable to having a newer car with monthly payments). No demands on our time beyond those we set for ourselves. Nowhere to be…
The question is, do I still get Sunday blues?
Honestly? I do a tiny bit, yeah. By this point, I think it’s like sneezing: just a biological reaction that I have no control over. But it’s SO MUCH better than when we were in the UK. If my personality and emotions were broken down into a list, like ingredients on a food packet, Sunday blues would be a trace element.
Right now, my ingredients label would say:
- Cat crushes: 20%
- Food thoughts: 20%
- Anal organisational tendencies: 15%
- Gratitude/smugness for life in BG: 15%
- Impatience: 14%
- Brexit rage: 10%
- Tutting: 5%
- Love and gooey stuff: 1%
- Sunday blues: trace
Considering my lifelong penchant for neuroses, I think that’s pretty good.
What about you? Do you still get irrational Sunday blues, even though you haven’t had a Monday morning maths test (or, shudder, double PE) for around 30 years? And what would your personality food label say? Come on, spill.
Wait till youre an old age pensioners! I have to Google to remember what day it is lol. Pension in the bank and today is paying bills day. A little bit of tension there.
Chill!!! Um not the snow/cold kind of chill
Firstly let me thank you for posting I do enjoy what you have to say and of course the cat pictures. I used to get the Sunday blues but like local alien as a pensioner I'm past that. The only Sunday blues I get is having to bid farewell to my much younger husband as he returns to spend his working week back at his elderly mothers house but its not that far away and we speak on the phone several times a day. Meanwhile I'm preparing for my return to Bulgaria in early March to get building work on our little village house started again and I'll be there on my own, dependant on local buses until Toy Boy joins me for Easter then we'll travel back to the UK together. Travel to our home will be difficult as I'll have to take the coach to Luton airport but because of the restrictions on hand luggage I'll be dressed like "Nanook of the north" for my journey, it doesn't seem to have snowed yet in the village so odds on it will be when I arrive and we've no heating in the house yet so getting, installing and learning how to use wood burners is high on the list of priorities. As are getting an internal staircase fitted into the basement and getting the basement habitable so all the stuff concerned with cooking can be moved out of the upstairs corridor and down into the basement kitchen, getting the garden planted out with veg so when I and then he returns later in the year we'll have something to live off, trimming the grape vines, putting up curtain rails and curtains to keep the cold out and taking a trip into town to pay the council tax. So hopefully I'll be way to busy to feel the cold. Thank you again for your post oh and Happy New Year.
I often feel the same on Sunday's. Strangely I often have a hard time stopping work on Fridays. These two phenomena are related but I haven't quite figured it out. I think our minds are least trouble by a feeling of stasis, and it is hard to make the transition from work to not work.
Well, that's one reason to look forward to old age — not being able to remember it's Sunday! 🙂
Happy New Year to you, Katt. Sounds like you've got your work cut out in March, but I'm sure it'll be fun. I sometimes miss those early, whirlwind-of-activity days, when ticking items off the renovation list felt as satisfying as climbing a mountain. Good luck, and enjoy. Fingers crossed for a mild March for your visit…
Interesting, although I have ZERO trouble making the transition from work to not work. For me, Fridays are like Christmas Eve, birthdays and childhood summer holidays all rolled into one!