You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
A 3 day holiday.
It’s great when it’s Friday and you’re pool side with an adult beverage in your hand.
But come Monday, it’s hard to re-engage.
Monday morning the alarm goes off.
I feel like a zombie.
My head is heavy like one soggy gym sock pushed into its mate.
The sun is pouring through my window blaring in my face like a semi truck bearing down on me.
It’s going to be a head on collision with Monday Morning.
I am confused.
Where the hell am I?
I kick off the blankets and jump out of bed.
I stand in the middle of the room unsure what to do.
I’m wearing pajamas, but I feel naked, almost hollow.
My thoughts are disjointed, time is tweeked, my brain askew.
I want to sleep. I want to lay in bed, my head on the pillow, thinking of nothing.
I want the soft fluffy clouds to drift into my thoughts, filling my mind with possibilities but not deadlines.
I want Manana to be my mantra.
Instead, there is an invisible pressure that comes with Monday.
I don’t want to go back to work today.
The feeling is immediate, crushing like a blood pressure machine squeezing my skin.
I feel that feeling of dread wash over me.
Soon it will be bosses pontificating and traffic snarls and bill collectors pumping my mailbox with correspondence that makes me mad.
Damn. Monday is a bitch, I say to myself, putting on Good Morning America.
The anchor team is up to its normal frivolity of dance theatrics and minimal news dissemination.
I saunter down the stairs. My shoulders are sore from a weekend of too much excess.
I am sunburned. I am walking like an old guy whose knees work better with more sleep and a beer in his hand.
I stop at the cabinet. I stare at the coffee. I have to literally think about how to make a single brew.
What the hell is wrong with me, I think wiping the sleep from my eyes.
It’s not like it’s 5:30 am and I’m going to Afghanistan for sniper training.
It’s America and I have a good job.
I’m just not into it.
I’m psyched up for Monday like Oscar Pestorious is excited about blubbering in court again.
It’s after 7am. The sun is bright, the birds are chirping. Don’t they know it’s Monday?
I feel a little dizzy, like I’m walking on a boat anchored to the Great Barrier Reef.
“Did everyone have a good Fourth of July holiday?” the anchor on the TV asks her cohorts.
That’s when it strikes me.
I’m jonsing for time off.
I suddenly realize I’m a vacation addict.
I’m strung out like a junkie needing a fix of more time off.
I am struggling to hold the coffee without shaking.
I can only think about sunshine and sizzling chicken on the grill.
I want to sit in my lounge chair and let the sun caress my face.
I want the sound of my wind chime to remind me that life is slower, easier, delivered on a a zephyr’s smile.
But it’s Monday. It’s a sledge-hammer in the skull. It is a bang to the head that deadens my thoughts, makes me think I have on set Alzheimer’s.
I am a junkie. A honest to God vacation day junkie.
I need another day of slow motion nothing.
I push the brew button and the coffee begins to chug-a-lug through the filter.
The aroma is a nostril flare reminder that Monday’s suck, that 3 day weekends are a drug that can easily take control of a man’s soul.
As I watch the golden nectar of the morning drip into the carafe, I imagine myself elsewhere, anywhere.
In my closed eye moment, I have no cares, no shirt, a gust of tropical flavor in my hair.
I find myself ordering room service from a man who speaks only Spanish. I see myself pushing my toe deeper into sand just wiped clean by a wave that started across the world. I imagine casting my line into a sunset scorched surf one more time only to reel in a smile and the orange hiss of bliss.
I open my eyes.
I see a to do list on the counter. It’s stacked next to the Bank of America bill which is next to a dirty dish that I should have washed a day ago.
I wish there was a pill I could take to make this feeling go away.
The vice grip of angst that is Monday is strong and tugs at my brain.
If this is addiction, then I have it bad.
I don’t want a 12 step program. I want 12 days on a sandy shore where my only concern is whether howler monkies will throw cocoa nuts at me from the trees.
I want a cool breeze, the sound of waves rythmically dancing with the sand.
Just then a text.
“ding”
It’s nails on a chalk board.
It’s the real world, knocking on my electronic door.
Someone out there wants me to do something, to know something, to bother me, to remind me that it is Monday.
Monday Sucks.
I put the phone down and close my eyes.
I inhale the steam pouring out of my coffee pot like it’s cocaine on a studio 54 dance floor.
I close my eyes and let the final moments of a 3 day respite fill brain. I imagine a beachside cafe with the porpoise singing on the horizon.
I have Monday Blues but if I dream just so I can turn them into a steel drum playing in my soul.
I pour a cup of coffee and watch an approaching storm front on the news.
“It’s going to be a wet Tuesday,” the weather lady says.
I smile to myself as I sit down and begin to look at emails I have blown off all weekend.
Sometimes you gotta hate Mondays to realize how great a 3 holiday really is.
I really hate Monday. I really enjoyed my 3 day holiday.
Life’s Crazy™