So what’s so scary about Sunday? The Sunday Scaries.
I never heard of this term before until a friend told me about it. As soon as he told me about it I’m like, I get it. I used to be about that life. Sucks balls it does.
This friend has another friend, a 9-5 job having, regular kinda guy. This guy hates his job so much that every Sunday night he gets overwhelmingly tense and anxious as he’s reminded of just how close he is to that Monday morning alarm going off and the impending doom of his upcoming workweek.
Week after week after week.
Tick tock tick tock.
Scary.
I used to feel that way too in my previous life chained to a cubicle at Death Star Enterprises.
Now my Sunday Scaries are actually on Fridays. And they aren’t even scary. Friday night is my Sunday night. Tuesday is my Friday–such as the life of a server. All your days, your sanity, your life all mixed up, always different from the crowd. My scaries aren’t even scary because I’m lucky, I love my job. Not all of us are so fortunate.
I feel for this poor friend of a friend. I remember my times of side-eyeing the clock every Sunday night, bitching to anyone who would listen about my life of drudgery working under the evil Galactic Empire aka for lawyers. Julia Roberts probably would have pitied me too like she did her mother in the movie Mary Reilly when she finds her mother’s corpse: “a poor wage for a lifetime’s drudgery.”
But even for those whose jobs aren’t putting them into an early grave, why does workweek eve strike so much fear into us?
It’s not necessarily because of our soul sucking jobs, our tyrant Boss Vader, or our looming pile of TPS reports. All workplaces have their downsides and upsides. I think it’s because we don’t live in the moment.
What if we looked at workweek eve with appreciation instead of damnation?
If you spend your precious Sunday nights watching a football game, having dinner with friends or sitting home alone eating popcorn and watching a great noir flick, does the joy of those things lessen because you happen to be doing them on a “scary” night?
Seems so.
Why? Because we aren’t doing one basic thing–living in the moment.
We are so busy worrying about how much the week ahead is going to suck, lamenting how much the past week sucked and feeling sucky about all the suck that we can’t enjoy the present. Every enjoyable moment is followed by “but I have to work tomorrow”. So what?
“Hey Christine, wanna do 10 shots tonight, get lampshade-wearing drunk and stay up til 4 am watching a Halloween movie marathon?” “But I have work tomorrow” is actually a reasonable response here. I know as I’ve rolled into the Death Star many a morning looking like an Irish Michael Meyers with Jameson sweating out of my pores.
But even on the eves of my days off, I used to let the scaries creep in. There’s always chores, appointments, to-do lists, therapy appointments. Ugh 11:00 am tomorrow, time for the weekly plunge into the depths of my neuroses. There’s always going to be something you don’t want to do tomorrow. Why taint tonight stressing about it?
I’m still guilty of this from time to time. As I type this I’m thinking I should go to bed, it’s 11:11 p.m. Should I have another glass of wine right now because I really want one and I’m into this writing? I should go to bed because I have to get up early for a freaking GI appointment before work. Life stress = GI problems.
Too Many Shoulds
I “should” go to bed. “Should” according to who? I think I do too many things I “should”.
I’m enjoying spewing out these words right now, having wine with my part-time cat here beside me (long story) and an old noir movie on. Should I abruptly stop all this because I have an obligation tomorrow?
Now I’m not going to hop in my car for an impromptu late night jaunt to Atlantic City and go “fuck it–everything on red!” But I’m also not going to be so rigid that I’m going to force myself to go to sleep right now when I’m not tired and most importantly when I’m enjoying myself.
I’m going to live in this moment, take my time, take it in, appreciate where I am at 11:14 p.m. on a *gasp* Sunday. I may not have everything I want, you never do, that’s the carrot dangling on the stick of life. But that’s okay. I have what I need right now to be content. I won’t let the thought of another twelve hour Monday ahead ruin this bit of Sunday night peace.
Monday is going to be hard whether I fret about it tonight or not. Hard but not scary, not impossible, not worse than anything I’ve done before. I actually like Mondays. Saturdays on the other hand are a beast. Again, welcome to the life of a server. We’re all backwards.
We all have beast days, but you can handle it. You may not like it, but you can handle it.
Disclaimer: If you absolutely abhor your job and it’s as bad as working at Initech where you dream of downloading a virus that would send the company into complete ruin, then yes you have legitimate scaries.
Get out I say! Do something, anything! Don’t waste your life hating 40, 50, 60 hours of it every week.
But if you have a job you can stand, don’t be anxious about the Sunday Scaries.
How to Ease Scary Anxiety
I direct you to an article that helped me, Mark Manson’s “Screw Finding Your Passion”.
I had already fled away at lightspeed from my soul-sucking job at the Death Star by the time my sister had sent me this article. But there’s always room for more change and this article still inspires me. You’re reading my inspiration.
Is my current job serving in a restaurant my lifelong passion? Now that I’ve found writing no, but I do like it. “Really, what is so wrong with working an okay, normal job with some cool people you like and then pursuing your passion in your free time on the side?” – Mark Manson
If you can stand your okay, normal job, you’re doing alright. If you can look around on the eve of your beast day and appreciate what you have and enjoy the moment then you’re fucking killing it at this life thing.
There will always be future and past wants and wishes, but we can make a choice to have more present gratitude. Present, 11:41 pm, as I’m about to stop typing this because I have to get up for this stupid fucking appointment tomorrow.
But there will never be another 8/11/24 11:41 pm again. What did I do with this exact time in this exact space in the grand continuum of my life?
I did what I wanted. I journaled which turned into this writing which I’m now sharing with you. And I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I hadn’t put my scaries aside and just lived in this moment.
Even if your present is reading this right now (thank you) during Sunday scary time, think about something that you have in your life on this very day, in this very moment that brings you joy. (Hey, Bill Lumbergh isn’t asking you to go ahead and come in and work on Saturday so that’s a plus).
Halloween is right around the corner. The price of candy (and everything else lately) is frightening enough. Treat yourself, trick your mind into staying present and try not to let the Sunday scaries spook you.
Happy Halloween!
❤️
CM
10/6//24
*8/11/24 wasn’t a typo, I started writing this in August 🤷♀️. Now that’s scary.
