Wednesdays are the hardest day of the week for me. Mondays tend to get a bad rap but I am not convinced they are really so bad.

 

On Monday I feel refreshed after having two days off. I usually have had more than eight hours sleep the night before, my feet aren’t aching from being stood on all day and most often, I still have the enthusiasm to pack a decent lunch.

 

But come Wednesday, I’ve got two days worth of dishes piling up in the sink, clothes strewn all over the floor and I can hardly keep my eyes open when I first wake up.

 

It takes every ounce of willpower I have to muster the strength to get out of bed.

 

On Wednesdays I always end up questioning what I am doing with my life. I am always especially critical of myself. And I always find myself beginning to long for the weekend.

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That’s the way it goes.

 

We spend the weekdays longing for the weekend and we spend the weekend wishing the weekdays wouldn’t come too soon.

 

In my family we have a special term for that melancholy, Sunday night feeling. ‘Sundaytitis’ was the simultaneous feeling of contentment from a weekend of rest and sadness knowing that tomorrow work would begin again.

 

The truth is, I spend 5/7 days each week wishing my life away. Longing for the rest, joy and fullness I feel on the weekend.

 

But I don’t just do this with weekdays and Wednesdays either, I’m guilty of doing it with whole seasons of my life.

 

I constantly find myself wishing I could jump past the boring, stressful and painful parts of life and skip to the good bits. I want to fast forward. I want every day to feel like the weekend, like the first day of summer, like the beginning of a holiday.

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Some days I feel the tears of frustration well up in my eyes because the reality is, we can’t fast forward. There is no skipping to the highlights.

 

We can’t avoid the Wednesdays, the crappy days and the just-plain-unfair-for-no-particular-reason days.

 

To get enjoy all of the wonderful times we must live through the bleak times as well.

 

Life is this infuriating balance of dull and beautiful, dark and light, work and rest. We need the contrast for completeness. We need the variety to keep up our momentum.

 

I feel this becomes apparently clear as the days are getting longer and the air is getting warmer.

 

Summer is romancing us with lavish sunshine and an abundance of blooms. It’s sweet and makes my soul happy but I know eventually I will tire of the relentless heat.  

Soon the humidity will feel overwhelming and once again I’ll be longing for the coolness of winter.

 

We think winter is boring and cold. We are stuck inside and it gets dark far too early and getting out of bed is the worst torture known to man. But in reality, winter is a blessing.

 

A break from the play-filled summer months. A time for the leaves to die off and seeds to burrow down into the soil.

 

A necessary pause in the middle of the year to slow us down as we glide closer and closer to Christmas.

 

Wednesdays are the same. Smack bang in the middle. A chance to pause and catch our breaths.

 

 

Something my Granny always says is that getting old happens much faster than you could imagine. She often remarks that one day I’ll wake up and suddenly be her age wondering where my whole life went.

 

And every time she says this, I will smile and nod at her just like she did to her grandmother.

 

But I know she is right.

 

Time is no friend of the young.

 

I see the wrinkles appearing already. They start at the corner of your eyes, just when you smile and eventually the creases become permanent, etching outwards towards the tips of your ears.

 

Our time is so very precious. I don’t want to wish it away. I don’t want to get so caught up in longing for the next big thing that I miss what is right in front of me.

 

The wonder in every day. The delight in simply being alive. The gift of another day on this planet.

 

I want to do my best to make every day special. To make every day count. To feel I have participated in a worthy exchange; a day of my life for the laughter, love, and beauty shared.

 

This isn’t easy to do, given how hectic and complicated our lives get. I think it is a spiritual practice, something that takes discipline and a sense of gratitude.

 

An awareness of those elusive, divine moments that are sprinkled throughout every day. If we blink we might miss them, so we have to practice keeping our eyes and our hearts open and receptive to them.

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Today might be dull. It might be dreary, rainy, slow or somber. But it is a day of your life that you will never get back.

 

So make it count. Search for the goodness, hope for more, keep gratitude at the centre of who you are.

 

Before you know it, you’ll be seventy five telling your grand daughter the very same thing.

P.S. If you are looking for a really excellent movie that focuses on the same idea as this post then check out ‘About Time.’ It’s one of my favourites!