Weakened by the Weekend.

I get weekends now.

Now working my first Monday through Friday nine to five job has made me finally understand what everyone had been talking about, what movies and TV glamorized, and what the song “Everybody is Working for the Weekend” meant. I now can see the beauty of a weekend and grasp it’s mythical quality. During the weekend, this understanding is a great thing. During the week it’s a God damn tragedy.

After college I worked on boats. For most of the year, my weekends were in the middle of the week with the occasional Saturday thrown in for a month or so. Then in Philly, I worked events and ran around the country setting shit up like a well-organized crazy person. I usually had to work weekends, at least one of the days and if I didn’t, well it was usually a slow week and some of the luster of Saturday and Sunday were lost on me. Sundays especially. Before my life with Kim, Sundays had become increasingly depressing. Solo Sundays are fun until you’re about 28. Then, if you’re single, they just become the day of the week that you do things by your lonesome that everyone else does with their significant other. This wears on you after a while.

It is currently Tuesday and I am sitting at my desk. The windows in my office don’t open and they are behind me. My shirt is tucked in and I have closed toed shoes on, even though I prefer flip flops. The other folks in my office are doing roughly the same thing I am. This is an office and this is what people do. Having realized this current situation has made me realize that like the song, I am now working for the weekends. Now I love weekends. I want to buy each weekend a dozen roses, squire it around town and pay it compliments. My weekends are now asterisk free and that is a beautiful thing.

Gone are the weekends were I had to work early Saturday morning and drive to Baltimore and gone are the weekends were I spent twelve hours on Sunday going up and down Casco Bay. Now I’m a dude who brunches on Sunday mornings and engages in leisurely activities on Saturdays. I really like Saturday afternoons now, especially when the weather is nice. I like when there is a breeze coming through the windows and we have reggae playing. I miss weekends as soon as they end and look forward to the next one as soon as the week begins. I guess it’s one of those things a grown up enjoys. I’m a grown up. I enjoy the weekends quite a bit.

We go to weddings on weekends and we go out to dinner with friends. Grocery shopping on Sundays is super lame, but less lame doing it with Kim because it leads to delicious dinners Sunday night before we settle in for whatever show HBO has on that night. If I was friends with someone who was only awesome some of the time and completely mundane and boring the rest of the time, I would nickname that person Weekend.

Three day weekends are the ultimate cake and eat it too situation. Three day weekends are gifts from God in the same vein as a good happy hour or free parking is. Friday or Monday, though? That question bugged me for a while, but now it’s a no-brainer- Monday all the way. It makes for a glorious Sunday and Sundays deserve more than just being the day of doom leading up to Monday. I like a good Sunday where I don’t look at the clock or not even once think about working the next day. I like that if I have a few too many good time pops Saturday night, I’m not totally ruining what is left of the weekend and if I want, I can have some more good time pops Sunday afternoon, a little Sunday Funday action, and not impede my ability to be completely and totally super awesome at work the following week.

Of course I do have to work this weekend- both days.

But that’s life. Just when the getting gets good, the good gets getting.

There will be other weekends, though. There will be more reggae Saturdays, BYOB date nights and afternoon good time pops.

So I lose one weekend. I’m not going to get bummed about it.

Lose two weekends? Then we have an issue.

But it’s Tuesday. If I think that way, the week is lost.

Weekends. I get them now. They’re as good as advertised.