For the longest time I hated Sunday nights, especially back when I thought I was the only one who hated Sunday nights.
It’s the worst part about football off-season. Google the Sunday night blues and you’ll find it’s a widely experienced phenomenon. Most people crack it up to the unavoidable dread of restarting their work week. But I’m more hesitant towards that answer.
I felt the Sunday night syndrome well before I ever had my first job. I can recall an iterative Sunday night mood in college as early as my freshman year. I’d talk my sister into going for runs at the rec center to avoid being alone. My Sunday nights have never been about dreading the work ahead. They’ve been more about wondering what is ahead.
There’s something about the quiet stillness on Sunday nights that forces us to look within. Fewer places to be, fewer texts and emails, fewer excuses for our time. Or maybe it’s Sunday night’s notorious history with sappy TV shows like Undercover Boss and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that really bring us down. I still haven’t made it through a full episode of either without succumbing to incessant tears.
Jokes aside, I think it’s the stillness that gets us. I’ve never been good at slowing down, too afraid I’ll miss out on an message or call or chance to prove myself as important. But I am beginning to believe that it’s absolutely necessary. They say the hardest part of embracing the future is letting go of our pasts. But even more than that, sometimes we need to let go of our present just as much.
If we are wanting to reach a higher potential, we must make room for better than the present. We must sink into the uncomfortable stillness and let it open up doors. It’s easy to get too busy to ever feel this stillness, to ever feel the discomfort that comes from wrestling with our dreams, and that’s exactly why we must. Living in the middle of New York City, I’ll attest to the fact that the world’s noise is unending. Too often we give up on hearing our inner voice and follow everyone else’s instead.
But maybe you weren’t created to be just like them. Maybe you were meant for something else. A calling that feels a little ridiculous to you because no one else you know shares it.
If you feel different, separate, peculiar, we need you just as that.
I have found boundaries to be a valuable gift towards creating the life that I want. For me, the hardest part now remains the pruning. It’s not at all an enjoyable process to cut back on habits and parts of myself that I’ve grown quite comfortable with. But as with the trees, doing so increases the production of fruit. Becoming a better me isn’t always a pleasant operation. But to get a life you love, you must be willing to give up a life you’re comfortable with.
To this day, I still have a love/hate relationship with Sunday nights. Late afternoon naps that leave me waking up with the sun already down are guaranteed to put me in the foulest of my moods. But when I take a step back and look at the landscape all together, it feels like a much holier experience. A Sunday night sanctification of stepping into a better me.