On the Madness of Holiday Weekends

You know how when you have a three-day weekend you spend the first day of it worrying whether or not you will be productive or waste all the time? That's me. 

And it will be worse on Sunday, as I stew and pine about what I should be doing, and I'll probably do some of what I should be doing, but not nearly everything I planned to do. Then Monday comes, the great holiday, and I'll spend the day moping around, complaining about not having enough time. I'll also start fearing the Tuesday morning as though it were a typical Monday morning. I'll ponder ways to extend the weekend, maybe let myself get sick....

And I won't sleep well, worried about using all this free time advantageously. Of course, some say simply doing nothing is not wasted time. It's called relaxation. Or rest. And that is a goal in itself. And beneficial. Anything to kill some time - because, as we all know, time is trying to kill us, as well. In fact, I sorta kinda blogged about that a really long time ago yet, sadly, it still remains here, if you wish to kill even more time by reading it. (Remember: you'll never get those minutes back again.)

Yet some folks swear by the "active" vacation whereby they arrive back at the start of the work week fully drained and unable to do their assigned tasks. Then they regale the rest of us with their tales of moral turpitude and/or risky behavior, swearing they have to do something even more wild next weekend,as though there is some kind of competition in life. It's as though the week was actually their period of rest and the job site their place of repose. (Mattress tester, perhaps?)

Not me. I like to be ready for my assigned tasks. So I spend the weekend worrying about being ready to perform my assigned tasks and thus gain little pleasure from my time away from those assigned tasks. Then, naturally, I complain about the assigned tasks throughout the week and dream of just making it to the next weekend. Ah! The next weekend...the undiscovered country! The paradise we dream of only to waste once we arrive.

Then the cycle begins again. It's truly maddening! Wash, rinse, repeat. Forever. Only boisterous children, fortuitous lottery winnings, precise meteorite strikes, and localized earthquakes can disrupt the pattern. So keep some candy in your pockets, a pen in your hand, a hard hat on your head, and a widely straddling skateboard close at hand. Then, perhaps, you may find yourself reading a blog or two, and dismissing them as pure fluff because it is, after all, just another holiday weekend. And you've got time to waste. 


PS, Update: I have managed to waste 2 hours by scrolling down my Twitter feed and then my Facebook wall and checking my email accounts twice. And making a fresh pot of coffee.



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