the weekend on my mind

I can't seem to to stop thinking about weekends. It overshadows like an impending doom about to clobber me. Well, maybe doom is such a pessimistic word. It seem to me like a pleasant secret about to be discovered. I dreamed of it last night, and the sense of excitement was undeniable.

I came to realize, not too recently, that people can change their long views on certain things in life as they grow older. Perhaps I should say- people transform their personal perspectives. I am an advocate for 'change for the better' mantra, and a fresher, auspicious and optimistic outlook change is always welcome. Over the years, I have transformed my views on weekends.

Weekend is such a simple, uncomplicated and inescapable part of our life: by definition, it is the end of the week, especially the period from Friday evening through Sunday evening. Yet people differ in their thoughts regarding it. Some people take weekends as a break, some people think it's yet another excuse to do more work especially at home. Younger kids look forward to do all the things they thought about over the week, preteens see it as another boring period filled with misery and inactivity. Some people love it, some people hate it.

Let me examine my evolving views on weekend. When I was little, weekends meant nothing else but play, play, play. As a schoolgirl, I looked at it as a respite from a week of school work, projects and various activities. As a teen, weekends felt like a severe punishment of being away from friends and being stuck at home being told to do this and that chores.

As a young adult, I had fluctuating emotions towards weekends, I guess. It was filled with highs and lows, there were glorious heydays and there was even a period when I hated it. I felt it were the loneliest days of the week, and if there was a chance to stay away from it, I would. I had thought of it as a waste of precious time. But then came a period in my life when I learned to appreciate weekends more. I welcomed the chance to take it slow and spend more time at home. I used to think (being young and believing I was invincible) that spending time at home was dumb, and that I need to be out gallivanting all the time (malling for hours and hours, and braving the heat of the sun).

When I got married and left home, a moment of realization happened to me. For a while, I was staying at my in-laws home (while David was away) and spent the weekends at my mom's house. And I never felt so anxious for the weekend. It was so true that one appreciates more the home after he leaves it. I remember being antsy all week, and when it finally came and I spent quiet afternoons with Gatorade and yogurt, I never ever felt so relieved. And to think I used to prefer noise around the house- the radio constantly on in the bedroom, the TV almost always in (rather) high volume, I was constantly chattering around the house, roughhousing with the dog. But it finally happened- I favored quiet weekends at home.

Now I have a different appreciation of weekends. David and I are together and we don't have much responsibilities at home (save the laundry and periodic house cleaning), and so we want to make our weekends as full as we can. Now that summer is coming, we have plenty of plans on our minds. If we can, we wanted to visit as many festivals as we can, theme parks, flea markets (my choice!), take many out of town trips, take tons of pictures and make it as memorable as possible!

I don't know what our weekends would be like, say, in three years. But I always want it to be cheery and productive. Our future weekends may not be quiet, or it may still be unrestricted, or it could become monotonous. But I always want to retain special feeling reserved towards weekends. That it doesn't have to be dull, too hectic or higgledy-piggledy to our liking. But instead, I want our weekends to complement whatever picks and passion we have at that certain time.