Sunday: the liminal space between tranquility and torment.
Gone are the days of childlike wonder, of noncommittal internal monologues based on having no responsibilities, no consequences, and no clocks. No clocks to wake up, go to work, or anything else. The joy of being carefree and unobligated to anyone or anything else is something we only get for a smidge of our lives. There's no rush when you're a kid, you don't need to think about Monday morning work, or paying rent, or the state of the world. Sundays have a way of putting us in that existential crisis, that mode where we are forced to deliberate whether we would rather be a carefree but mindless kid, or deal with all the things adults have to. Once, Sunday meant cartoons, soft clothes, the smell of something baking, and the luxurious boredom that came from having nowhere to be. Time felt padded, forgiving. Now it feels thin—translucent—like something you might accidentally tear just by thinking too hard about Monday.
This pendulum swing between childhood and adulthood is exactly why we sometimes wish to be a cat. They're soft, floofy, adorable, and they don't have to get up for work Monday morning. Have you ever felt the cold sting of resentment and jealousy as you see your cat bundled up in your bed right before leaving the house for work? Yeah, you're on the verge of collapse, but your cat is happy as a clam. Yet, there is still tenderness here. In the quiet moments. In the softness of pajamas worn all day. In the choice to do nothing, even briefly, as an act of resistance. Sunday holds space for grief over lost ease, but also for small comforts that make the waiting bearable. It is neither ending nor beginning, but the fragile bridge between them. A pause filled with both calm and ache. And maybe the task of Sunday isn't to solve anything at all—just to exist gently in that in-between, until the world asks us to move again.
Despite Sunday fatigue, or jealousy that our cats don't have to work, there's a time when we can just relax and do something for ourselves to take the edge off, and that's scrolling cat memes. Enjoy!
