Cut the Shit

Sunday Blues

I don’t know about you, but Sundays tend to be my least favorite day of the week. It’s mostly cuz Monday is such a shit day that I tend not to enjoy the good parts of my Sunday and focus on the impending doom that will be the beginning of my week. Because of this, I spend most Sundays in bed with Paul, watching movies, going to dinner, and back to bed in order to get all of the comfortability out of life before I have to be thrust out of the womb and into the cold harsh life that is New York rush hour at 8am.

Once in a while I actually MAKE plans for a Sunday brunch and it always turns out to be exactly what I needed to do to overcome the “Sunday Blues”.

Today my friend Mariah showed up at my apartment and we had a smoke and a drink and went to brunch. Sitting there, in the sun, a glass of wine in one hand, a cigarette in the other…it was a sense of peace that I’ve only found at various moments while living in this big city.

No matter what I do, I’m always focused on the “next thing”. If I’m having drinks or watching a movie or seeing a Broadway play, I’m always thinking “what’s next”. It’s maddening and a facet of my personality that I’m working overtime to change.

Yet, when I’m sitting in the sun on a beautiful day, having appetizers and drinking a Pinot Grigio…when I’ve got my cigarette in one hand, my boy and one of my best on each side…my dog/my love sitting on my lap and cuddling away…it’s a peace and a calm that reminds me why being alive is so important. It’s a reminder that depression does have cures that are available to me.

I’ve realized lately that I’m truly becoming this cynical, negative bitch. My friend Rita used to tell me that one of my most remarkable qualities was that I was always the naïve, glass is half full, kind of guy. It was endearing to others and personally, comfortable for me. But then life takes a turn and against my will, I started to become the jaded, glass half empty, kind of bitch that I refuse to accept. It’s not who I want to be, regardless of the fact that it might be who I’m becoming.

Mariah with her bloody Mary, Paul with his glass of flat water, me with my bottomless cup of wine…a peace and 4 hours of my life that I feel were spent appropriately and beautifully. Yet, I’m already feeling the blues while writing this.

Cuz as with my new and unfortunate personality…so much of my brain is working overtime reminding me that brunch is over, the sun is setting and the wine has run out. It’s time to set out the clothes for tomorrow, clean up the dishes, and think about the brutality that is a job that doesn’t compliment you in any way important; in any way special, in any way enjoyable.

But today I try something different. Today I use mind over matter and I spend my last few hours of freedom on a Sunday as calm as I can be. I spend it playing with my dog, watching a movie that I love, and putting all of my ducks in a row so that when tomorrow mornings ugly head turns (please God any time after 3am – sleeping on a Sunday night is my biggest challenge), I will be ready and strong enough to get my ass to that subway.

Whatever. No matter what happens, I’ll remember that having 4 hours of fulfillment on a Sunday afternoon is the best arsenal I’ve had against my Monday terror than any idea that’s come before it.

And because of that, it may become a ritual.