taking back sunday

Back in the day when I was still in school, I remember Sunday used to really be a day of rest. I'd wake up early in the morning, be in church by 8, if I was on rotation for worship team that day I'd probably have to stay till 12, then go to school and hang out in my room or out in the sun and do nothing till it got dark or people started coming back. I was in one of those schools that's really tucked away in the forest (read built-in-the-countryside) so all those people who stayed in Nairobi used to vamoose all weekend or go hang out in town or wherever, basically anywhere other than there. Me, I made lemonade with the lemons I got - I took the time to reconnect with nature, which as it happened was aplenty all around us... [although the fact that home was too far for me to go for breaks shorter than 3 weeks coz I'd spend like a week on the road helped]. See that way when I started the week next Monday at 11am [wat! my course wasn't as involving as it should have been!] I was completely rejuvenated. Monday didn't even use to feel like Monday.

But not these days. First working is a world away from school, coz 8 working hours really means 8 hours plus nights and weekends, so you have no free time to recuperate over the week. Then now the Sundays are no longer my own. If it's not work, or a concert I have to attend in support, or a long lost friend I have to see, or get my hair cut, or travel, then there's gonna be no power and so I'll spend the whole day obsessing over that and checking if it's come back. I swear, the only difference between Sundays and other days is the way I dress. Even a simple lunch with the mother [she happened to be in town today so] takes up the entire day - so many grown up things to discuss: mortgages, bank loans, investments, digital cameras, the economy...ok, not really :) So now at the end of the day you're so tired you can't even lift a finger, then you realize you'd just gotten The Freedom Writers over the week and today is when you were supposed to watch it, and coz the power situation is unpredictable I gotta get ready (= iron clad) for the whole week ahead just in case. As if that's not enough, you're realising all this at 10.30 so there's the whole early to bed and early to rise thing that you've also gotta get around to.

{{sigh}} when did it all get so crammed up?? I never actually thought the schedule would ever be as free as uni again, but I didn't think it would get this bad either. I need to bring back me-time. And not those late nights, actual me-time. Sunday afternoon. Sipping margaritas (or apple juice). Listening to neo soul or acoustic rock (seeing as I have this home theater I never really get to enjoy). Watching those old daytime series I used to be crazy about (Ed, 7th Heaven, Jack and Jill, Dawson's Creek, Charmed, Everwood...) or Mariah Carey's and Trump's True Hollywood Stories, or the deep moving black family movies that rocked the 90's - Set It Off, Soul Food, Brown Sugar, The Best Man, Waiting to Exhale, Boyz in the Hood. Learning guitar. Not having a splitting headache. All the things I never get to do since I started working. And that I probably won't get to do this coming weekend coz one of us in my inner circle has a birthday then. It always turns out to be fun with those guys so I'm staying positive about that one, but after that...

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