Some weeks you really need a Saturday on a Wednesday.
-- Cynthia Copeland Lewis, ““Really Important Stuff My Kids Have Taught Me”

The papers in your inbox seem to be multiplying by the hour. The phone keeps ringing and the emails keep coming (and none of them are the fun jokes you’d really like to read). People are in and out of your office needing your opinion, signature, and shoulder. You’ve got a meeting scheduled at 9:15 to go over the plans for the lunch meeting which will be held to discuss the 4:30 meeting. At 8:00 p.m., you’ve got a family meeting to discuss how to meet everybody’s needs. On top of that, your secretary exchanged your dark roast Brazilian java with some fancy French vanilla cinnamon blend. Ugh! While there’s no doubt you love your job and your family, today you could really use a break (and a fresh cup of real coffee).

And you don’t need just any break. You need a day where the only sound you hear from your deluxe sound alarm clock is a digital quality rain storm, Zen melody, mountain stream, waterfall, songbirds, or ocean surf which you actually don’t hear because you’re sleeping so soundly. You need a day where when (and if) you do get out of your down comforter bed, it’s late. But that’s okay because nothing is required of you so you leisurely eat buttery light waffles and drink mango mimosas while sitting on the chaise lounge of the deck reading a novel by your favorite author. You need a day where you can forget the time, the inbox, and the meetings. You need a day like a Saturday.

As a matter of fact, you need a few Saturdays in a row. Saturdays where you –

What? You don’t recognize these Saturdays? You say these aren’t the way your Saturdays are? You say your Saturdays are errand days; days where you catch up on yard work, the laundry, and the kids? You use Saturdays to pay bills and balance your checkbook? Grocery shop? Take the dog to the vet? Clean the fish tank? Scrub the floors? Clean the closets? Dust the trinkets? Clean behind the refrigerator? Sometimes you use the day to do the work you brought home? You’re kidding, right? Every Saturday? Geez, now Saturday sounds like just another work day.

It’s no wonder you’re so smashed today if you did all that stuff and more like it on Saturday.

It’s because we stuff our Saturdays so tightly with all the errands, designs, and demands that by the time Wednesday rolls around, we’re already spent and in need of some down time. Saturday becomes just another day, not one that is made for relaxing and taking time for ourselves. Certainly there are things we must do on Saturdays because it’s impossible to do them during the week’s working days. But is it necessary to do those things every Saturday? Can’t we use one Saturday to listen to the clock’s ocean waves, drink a refreshing mimosa, and not be responsible for anything?

Commit to making at least one Saturday each month a day of relaxation and quiet. Perhaps then the workdays may not seem so tiring and overwhelming and when Wednesday comes around, it can just be the hump day that sees the glory coming on Saturday.

Sadiqqa © 2007