Wasted Weekend

As I bolted out of bed this morning, frustrated that I didn't get a better night's sleep - largely because I was lying awake anxious about getting a good night's sleep, 'tis a vicious cycle - I couldn't help but feel that I'd wasted the weekend.

Oh the weekend stared fine, with a quasi-date involving Indian food, an attempt to see a movie, and an explorative drive throughout the area on which we discovered that we live alarmingly close to a casino. But then Saturday came. And nothing happened. I slept in some, and I know I ate some food, and I know I ended up falling asleep at the astonishingly early hour of 9:00 PM. But I don't know that anything else happened. I think all that time was wasted watching re-runs of Project Runway and other indulgent and wasteful television programs. Oh, occasionally I might have contemplated actually doing something, but I never did. Sunday was much the same, though I ended up shopping for groceries and washing/ironing several loads of laundry. But that was all requisite stuff. Stuff that, had I not done it, I simply wouldn't have been able to get through the following week.

Why did this happen? Going into the weekend, I was exhausted, largely because the previous weekend had involved the highly stressful, two-day speech tournament. By the time Friday rolled around, I was desperate for some respite. And I largely think I did as I did on Saturday and Sunday because I was too damn tired to do anything else. But now that Monday is back upon us, I feel profoundly unsatisfied with the weekend. I feel angry that I should grow so tired in the course of a week as to fall into such a slump during the weekend. That I should find myself not using my weekends for pleasure and recreation and living my own goddamn life. From here on out I resolve to strive to use my weekends for good. I shall not succumb to the urge to be a lump. I shall not let my job and modern urban/suburban life wear me down to that point. I shall be vibrant and alive, and use my own time to fulfill my wishes, not just to recover so that I can make it back to work on Monday. I shall work to live, not live to work.

Yes, I have said as much before, and I have slipped back. But the overall progress is, I think, positive. With this reaffirmation, I set myself back on course.

Now I just need to make it through this week, and through the two-day debate tournament on Friday and Saturday without growing, once again, tired, cranky, and sour. Wish me luck...