Wasting my Weekends
I am a weekend waster, a bed rotter (more often a couch rotter, but whatever). It’s actually so horrendous. I don’t know what happens, but it’s like the minute I leave work on Friday, there is a chemical shift in my brain. I lose all ability to do anything. I sleep an excessive amount, and any time awake is spent watching movies or scrolling through TikTok. On my best weekends, this lasts until some point Saturday evening, when I muster up the energy to do some chores and take a shower. On the worst weekends, this lasts until the literal last moment on Sunday night when I realize that I need to do something or the weekdays are going to be torturous.
I don’t know what the cure to this is, but there are a few things that sometimes help. First, I force myself to shower on Friday night. This stops the following thought process:
I don’t have anything to do tomorrow, so I don’t HAVE to shower tonight.
Saturday morning: If I wash my hair now then it’ll throw off my night showering vibes and my hair won’t be dirty enough to wash on Sunday night, but too greasy by Monday night. I might as well wait until tonight.
Saturday all day: I really should do (insert literally anything here). But I still have all day tomorrow, so I really don’t have to.
Is it a flawed thought process? 1000000%, but it’s just what I do. I also want to reiterate that all of these thoughts take place as I scroll through TikTok in between naps. This definitely makes it way worse because my brain is distracted, which leads me to the next thing that helps: I force myself to sit in silence for a few minutes. NOW HEAR ME OUT! I am so overstimulated all the time: TV on, music playing, TikTok, etc. Sometimes multiple of these things are all happening at the same time. So I stop all of them. I turn off the TV, put my phone away, and sit completely still and quiet for a few minutes. I mentally walk through all of the things that I need to do, and sometimes, when it’s really bad, I say it out loud. It’s not foolproof, but it works most of the time.
Now I’ll acknowledge that I used the word “force” for both things, but I really mean it. I have to very VERY intentionally make myself do these things. I don’t know why I do this, but I absolutely hate it. I feel like all the time I spend sleeping or distracting myself isn’t even truly restful because my brain’s just spiraling with all of the things I have to do. The closest thing I can find to this is task paralysis, which is most often associated with ADHD, which I don’t have. Long story short, I guess the point of this is to put it out there into the universe that I don’t want to end another weekend feeling like I’ve wasted the whole thing and feeling bad about myself for it.
It’s currently a Sunday evening, and this definitely hasn’t been one of my worst weekends, but it also hasn’t been one of my best. I cleaned the litterboxes, reorganized some stuff in my bathroom, did laundry, and did the dishes. But I also spent a ton of time anxiously scrolling and procrastinating. This made all the time I spent finishing knitting my sister’s scarf significantly less enjoyable. Next weekend, Mom and Dad are visiting, though, which will stop me from repeating this. And I’m swearing right now that any rotting I do on future weekends will be truly restful, after I’ve done all my chores and taken an everything shower. More of a self-care rot, if you will. I think that’s a fairly doable goal for now.
