Sundays

Dressed up for church. I'm the little one.

Every day has a feeling. Sunday is the first day of the week on my calendar. But it always feels like the end. Monday is the beginning of something. Sunday is for saying goodbye to a week.

The way Sunday feels has changed over the course of my 42 years. When I was a child, Sunday was for Sunday school and church. My earliest memories of church were of boredom. I often fell asleep during the services. Maybe it was really early in the morning. Maybe the preacher droned on. My mother played piano for our church. (I'm referencing one church, though we went to many over the years.) Her fingers played the notes even as she sat in the pew next to me. I watched her "play" the piano and studied her fingers. I studied my father's fingers, too, though his were harder and hairier.  

I'm the little one. No, not the dog!

The most exciting thing about Sunday was the Sunday paper, in this case, the Rapid City Journal. The Sunday paper was the best because the Sunday paper had (dun, dun, dun) the comics! We called them "the funnies." I was the first to grab them out of the big, heavy paper, chock full of advertising inserts and special sections. I loved almost all the comics. I didn't understand Family Circus. It seemed incongruent. I read it anyway but never found it remotely funny. But if church was black and white, the funnies were full color!

The 80s turned into the 90s, and Sundays changed. By 1992, I was the only child left at home. Four years later, I would be gone, too. In 1998, I got a retail job, so had to work pretty much every Sunday. I went months without having a single whole day off with my now ex. Working Sunday nights was the worst. It was so depressing being at work while everyone else in the world was at home with their families. I worked that job for 16 years, never knowing when I'd get to see my ex for any length of time. No doubt it stressed our already stressed relationship to the breaking point. 

On the rare occasion I got a Sunday off, it was savored. Often a Sunday off meant grilling or taking a drive down to the river. We were not rich people, so those were our celebrations. And Sunday night brought panic and the familiar refrain of, "When will I see you again?" It was a hard way to live. Perhaps my chronic absence was the thing that killed our relationship. She had to fill those hours with something. Or someone. Too often for us, those Sundays were like Kris Kristofferson's Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down.

I don't panic on Sunday nights anymore. Every day is pretty much the same now. I work and eat and go to bed. The details change, but the days are all the same. Sundays don't have a feeling. If the weather is nice, I'll go outside. If not, I'll probably still go outside. This year, Sundays have often been spent on a nearby beach. My son and I explored the frozen beachscape, littered with upended "glaciers," "bridges," and "icebergs," often finding discarded sand toys like rakes and trowels, and sometimes decoys (he took one home) and dead fish. 

I'm not the little one. That's my son and his pet cat. Yes, his pet cat. It just looks like a duck.

Maybe someday Sundays will mean church and backyard BBQs and other things that don't make sense now. Or maybe it will be the all-too-familiar panic. Or maybe it will be funnies on the porch and walks in the park with my canine best friend. Or they'll be spent with a special woman whose smile takes my breath away. It doesn't matter. It feels like I've lived ten lives already — more than enough for anyone. Perhaps what I'm feeling is the Sunday of my life. Then again, maybe God has something more for me. Whatever it is, I'm up for it, whether it's Sunday, Monday, or any other day. 

Thank you for reading. And God bless.