Many people have a day of the week they dread most. For some, it’s Mondays, the day you have to go back to work or school, and for some its Wednesdays or Thursdays, which can feel like filler, just waiting for Friday to roll around. The day that’s the absolute worst for me is Sunday.
I find it hard to enjoy a Saturday night, as I just lie in my bed dreading waking up and it being Sunday. Part of this is because this is the day I declare the end of the weekend, and part of it is because of something now known as “Sunday scaries.”
This is really just a term to encapsulate the anxiety that comes when you think about all of the things you have to do in the upcoming week, or things you forgot to do over the weekend. Throughout middle school and early high school, I had a case of the scaries, the worst. I would think about homework, games, and a busy schedule, all of which I would have to deal with as the week began.
Being in college, I have this feeling of doom in a new way I’ve never felt before. In my first year of college, I tried to get involved in clubs and make an active effort to attend events on campus, which can quickly become overwhelming when trying to fit into my routine. I joined the dance team here on campus, which I have absolutely loved being a part of, but it contributes to some of my worries.
Sundays, which would ideally be my reset day, now consist of six hours in the basement where dance is held, starting at four o’clock, which in my head is smack dab in the middle of the day. I am the type who struggles to make other plans earlier in the day when I know I have something like that to do.
I want to sleep in on Sundays, to recover from whatever events the weekend held, and all of the academic stress I put myself through each weekday. Sleeping in to me is waking up no earlier than 12:30-1 o’clock-ish. When I do this, my whole day is gone. Now I have to wake up, straighten up my room, eat, change, and get ready for dance. In my head, that means I have absolutely no free time and can’t make any other plans besides that.
With the end of the semester coming up, assignments have become even more demanding and time-consuming than ever. As soon as I feel at peace with my assignment tracker having no upcoming due dates, I remember that I have to fill it back out for the upcoming week. Every single time I have to toggle “not started,” I start to feel sick. The wave of doom and despair hits again, and I am back to square one.
At this point in the week, both my laundry bin and my roommates’ are typically overflowing, beds unmade, shoes all in the wrong place, and the room is in a state that is not suitable for the public eye. This adds once again to the Sunday scaries, as I start to feel behind on maintenance on top of everything else, I have coming up.
I think I am just a very stressed person in general and have tried to find ways of managing my time by making calendars and following my assignment tracker, but unfortunately, all of those things are no match for the Sunday scaries I have been feeling since my early teenage years.