Tag Archives: melancholy

A hell of a drug…

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This past weekend was the first time I’d been home during the autumn in probably 20 years. I’d be lying to you if I tried to play it off as if driving down old familiar roads with the leaves changing, even on a rain swept day, didn’t find the nostalgia hitting hard. It was mostly memories of fall long ago – a time and place so different from today that it almost feels like something from a fever dream. 

The combination of the smells and colors of fall bought on instant flashes of core memory… the lion’s share of which featured long trips on the band bus and friends I thought of then as closer than family. The memories were so thick I could damn near touch them. 

Of course, it’s not this time of year for me if any trip down memory lane doesn’t come along with a touch of melancholy. I couldn’t resist dipping my toe into thoughts of how much time has changed it all – the priorities, the people, and how important they are beyond treasured in memory. Some, fortunately, have hung in there for the long haul. That’s fortunate. Who else would sit around over lunch and listen to the same old stories about the olden days?

The weekend was anything but restful. It feels distinctly like I skipped the part of the week where I usually put my feet up and recover… like somehow we bleed directly from Thursday into Monday without any intervening time. I don’t regret it for a moment, but I’ll be high key happy to get through the next four days and then have a proper rest.

I’m glad to be back into the routine… but damned if the draw of falling back into decades old habits wasn’t washing over me like some siren’s song. Even now I can feel that tide ebbing away, but in the moment it absolutely felt like I could have stepped back into a life I haven’t lived in a quarter of a century without so much as a stutter step. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. 

What I learned this week…

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There was an article in The Atlantic this week that described what I regularly refer to as That Sunday Feeling as “low grade existential dread.” That sounds about right. What’s more, turns out there are actual studies that try to define and explain the phenomenon.

Turns out I’m not alone in my Sunday afternoon melancholy and it has been a recognized feature of the end of the weekend since before the formal weekend was even really a thing. I’m not sure if that’s a bit of information that should make me feel better beyond the understanding that misery loves company.

So what did I learn this week? Mostly that Monday ruins Sunday for all of us. Someday maybe I’ll learn something cheery.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. The end. As we sit here on Thursday, we’re on the cusp of this ultra-long weekend becoming just a regular sized weekend… and the thought of going back to other people setting the agenda on what I care about or how I spend my time is just about the most depressing thing I can imagine. It’s like the Sunday “blahs” on steroids.

2. Cleaning. There is a down side of basically being home full time… and that’s the surprising amount of extra dirt that gets thrown into the house and the extra cleaning it takes to get rid of. Spending a lot of extra time cleaning definitely didn’t figure prominently in the plan for the week, but here we are.

3. Food. I’ve got a refrigerator full of food. Good food that I went to the trouble of buying and cooking over the last couple of days. I currently want to eat exactly none of it… which means I have to leave the house (because no one in their right mind delivers all the way out to Fortress Jeff). Living in the happy quiet of the woods has its perks, but it makes it awfully hard in those moments of spontaneous desire for Chinese, or pizza, or really anything other than what you’ve already got.