I get the opportunity, every once in a great while, to voice my opinion to my husband.  It doesn’t mean he’s gonna listen or care, but I still feel like it’s worth while to speak my mind on an irrelevant matter.  It’s irrelevant because no matter what I say, he’ll do what he wants.  But that’s a completely different subject, if not an entire new and “exclusive to him” blog.

I think we find out new things about ourselves on a daily basis.  It could be something as small as a need for an organized junk drawer to something as large as changing career direction.  I have realized, and to be honest just within the past year or so, that I like  having Sundays for me.  To be more clear, myself and my family.  I was trying to determine, as I seem to always need to do, the reason why.  I’m on a constant mission for the reasons why I feel or react the way I do.  It’s on a “need to know” basis, and damn it, I need to know!  I’ll Google ailments, (my own and others), diy fix it things around the house, etc.  Google is my friend.  Me + Google = Love.  We are in a committed relationship and nothing will ever come between us.  I will research the shit out of something.  New cars, recipes, home purchases.  I will “who-what-when-where and WHY” the hell out of a certain situation.  But that’s beside the point I’m trying to make.

I haven’t worked a 40 hour week my whole life.  I was lucky enough to stay at home with my children and not put them into daycare.  I had a great mother-in-law that watched my children for me when I did decide to work.  I’ve worked many part time jobs.  I’ve had jobs that required 40 hours, but most, including the one I have now, is part time.  I work everyday, 32.5 hours per week.  In the past, I didn’t really care one way or another about having my weekends free.  Many jobs I held I had to work the weekend, but I never found myself looking forward to a Thursday because I was off.  I don’t know whether it’s my age or my patience or just the fact that I’m now putting in a Monday through Friday work week that I actually look forward to my weekends.  I usually try to get the majority of my cleaning done on Saturday so that I can have Sunday to myself.  I enjoy cooking and watching my Real Housewives (of whatever city is on that day).  I like my peace and quiet and I like working at my own pace. 

Now to my gripe.  I DO NOT  wish to run my child to a ball game.  Basketball or baseball.  I don’t want to make time to sit and do nothing at a practice on a Sunday.  I don’t care if it’s 75 and sunny outside.  I do not believe that games should be scheduled on Sunday.  I’m not going to say the Sabbath, because I’m not particularly religious about that stuff.  But hey, on the 7th day, God rested, why can’t we, right?  I want to make a great dinner, a new recipe that I want to try.  I want to have my son who doesn’t live at home over to eat dinner.  I want to sit on my deck, look up at the sky and watch the clouds roll by.  Or maybe not do any of that, but “I” want that option.  I don’t want some coach of some sport telling me what I’m gonna be doing with my time, especially on a Sunday. 

I call this greed. Greed to need that extra day to make the team better so that the team can win.  Take my evenings, go ahead.  Take a Saturday if you have to, but please leave my Sundays alone.  Let “me” decide what myself or my family will do to enjoy this day before school, work or whatever.  Let us wind down and enjoy a cool breeze blowing through the bedroom window, while the sun shines in and warms our faces.  Let us enjoy a relaxed, inviting dinner prepared by myself and allow us to sit down when WE want to eat it, not when we have a few minutes to shove it down our throats.  You have my family with a 6 day option, let ME have the 7th. 

I remember when I was a young girl, stores were closed on Sundays.  Closed.  And you know the old saying, “you don’t know what you have until it’s gone”.  Well, I know it now.  If Christmas hours are any indication of things to come, eventually retail stores will be open 24/7.  You’ll be able to go get some laundry detergent at 4am from the neighborhood store a block away.  And you’ll actually be DOING laundry at 4 am because your child has a game on Sunday.  Survival of the fittest.  You don’t stay open, you close for good. 

It’s all about winning.  Greed makes even the weakest hungry for more.  Our team MUST win.  We MUST get better.  Our franchise MUST get better sales.  Bigger, better, means winning.  I win, I get more.  I accumulate more.  The need to have “more” becomes overwhelming.  More wins, more money, more of my time. 

It’s Monday morning and I’m spending it bitching about Sunday.  The day before today.  It’s 6 days away, but it’s right around the corner.  Can we not just take a moment to breath and live and enjoy the fruits of our labor?

If we can’t do it then….. when?

“If others tell us something we make assumptions, and if they don’t tell us something we make assumptions to fulfill our need to know and to replace the need to communicate. Even if we hear something and we don’t understand we make assumptions about what it means and then believe the assumptions. We make all sorts of assumptions because we don’t have the courage to ask questions.”
― Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom

I love The Four Agreements for many reasons.  The insight to assumptions is spot on.  We are all guilty of assuming things.  Small things that we blow off and not so small things that we blow out of proportion.  We are taught from the time we are young to assume.  A baby cries at night, we feed the baby a bottle.  It’s only natural for that baby to “assume” that he or she will be fed when they cry because they are hungry.  But babies cry a lot, and not just because they’re hungry.  But we “assume” many times that they are.  Baby cries out of boredom, parent wonders, “hmmmm, I just fed them an hour ago, maybe they’re growing and need more”.  We enter school and get instantly hit with the math problems.  “If Johnny has 2 eggs and Lisa has 3 eggs, how many eggs do they have all together”?  The answer would be five when we’re in grade school. But set foot into middle school and all of a sudden we’re forced to realize that it’s a distinct possibility that Lisa could have eaten one of those eggs because she was famished due to PMS,  bringing the total down to 4.  Fast forward to high school and you’re in class with the hottest cheerleader in school.  She leans over to ask for help on her homework, and the quiet bookworm guy gushes, thinking he has a chance.  Assumption at its finest.

Texting has enabled assumptions to spread like wild fire.  Read a text in your own “state of mind”.  You can read a text and make all kinds of speculations as to what the other person means.  Take the simple text:  Is there anything for dinner?  Now, that statement will make all kinds of threatening feelings depending on the person it’s coming from/to.  If it’s from your husband, you might think, “oh no, he’s pissed I haven’t made dinner the last 2 days”.  Your picky son:  “he’s starving and needs to eat as soon as he gets home”.  Your daughter:  “she’s having a bad day and needs to carb load her emotions”.  You see, there are several ways to interpret a simple text.  Oh and then there’s YOU and your own feelings for that day.  “What the hell do they mean, I ALWAYS make dinner, and I’m tired of it”. 

Now these are just some small examples, there are millions more.  “I assumed when he called me, he liked me”.  I assumed when they showed up late, they are sending a signal that we aren’t important enough to show up on time for”.  “I assumed when I was sick, you would take care of me the way I took care of you when YOU were sick”.  You see what I’m saying?  Assumptions are made on a daily if not hourly basis.  Miguel is absolutely right, we make all sorts of assumptions because we don’t have the courage to ask questions.  To be fair, we aren’t always in the position to ask those questions.  They might make us uncomfortable to ask.  “Does she like me”?  “Do you have a problem with me and decide you need to show me instead of tell me”?  The list goes on and on.  So many questions go unanswered, because we fear what we might hear.  We may even judge and jury the hell out of a completely innocent act, but we’ll never know the true reason unless we ask.

I don’t see an end to the insanity.  To all the madness that surrounds presumption and conjecture.  We will, until the end of time take our own feelings into account and think that we understand who, what, when, where and why somebody did or said what they did or said.  It’s inevitable. It will never change. 

At least that’s what I assume.