The Sunday Blues

Don't get me wrong, I truly hate Sunday's and the hangover feeling that often accompanies Sunday's. But I think I find an odd sense of gratification from the array of emotions induced by such Sunday's, even if the emotions are negative (as they tend to be during the hangover). It's the one day of the week when my emotions are particularly strong; on all the other days I pretty much just try to get through the day, largely apathetic to the routine.

Perhaps it's because it provides me the opportunity to do some soul-searching. I've always been more of a thinker than a talker, and Sunday's are usually a pretty introspective ordeal. I often go for long walks on Sunday's, a practice that I began in college. Long walks provide the ideal settings for some deep thinking. I enjoy looking at my surroundings, thinking about how I got to this precise moment in my life. And I enjoy walking by people, and wondering what kind of battles they are fighting.

I think Crooked Fingers, a band introduced to me in college by a friend probably on one of these Sunday mornings, nailed it in the song "Sunday Morning Coming Down". The story of the song begins with the guy waking up hungover on a Sunday, and then drinking a beer for breakfast ("and one more for dessert"). At that point he ventures outdoors. He then describes:

"I lit my first [cigarette] and watched a small kid/ Cussin' at a can he
was kickin'./ Then I crossed the empty street/ and caught the Sunday smell/
Of someone fryin' chicken/ And it took me back to something/ That I'd lost
somehow/ Somewhere along the way."

He finally ventures back inside, only to hear the tolling of a distant church bell, which "echoed thru the canyon like/ the disappearing dreams of yesterday".

My Sunday walks often occur in much the same way. I think about my past and how I'll never get it back. And, specifically since I've arrived in Chicago, I've often questioned how I ended up here. That is, in such a big city when I've always known that I'm not the city-type; in a city so many miles from the places familiar to me and important to me. I think about the many small decisions I made in my past that all contributed to me being here at this point in my life, and I wonder if maybe I made one of those little decisions wrongly. And I think about how different my life could be had I made just one of those little decisions differently.

And like the narrator in "Sunday Morning Coming Down," I think about what I've lost along the way. I think about my life -- how I'm not really in the place I always thought I would be, and how I'm not really the person I always thought I'd be either.

But I tend to situate myself in the camp that believes there are no wrong decisions, really. I don't think anyone ever finds themselves in the exact position he always thought he'd be in. And I don't think anyone is ever 100% satisfied with the person they are. Life largely consists of the moments when things are a work in progress. And life occurs in the days when we are working towards something better. The trick is then, I suppose, learning to accept that reality. You have to learn to accept that the "dreams of yesterday" will always be disappearing, and all you can do is use the lessons you've learned from those lost dreams to try and get to where you want to be in life.

I'm ready for it to be Monday.