The Best of Intentions

I know a lot of people have very negative feelings about Mondays and to be honest, yes, when my alarm goes off at 6:15, I do too.  But I also kind of love Mondays.  A Monday always feels like a fresh start.  Whatever went wrong or seemed insurmountable last week will be easily fixed this week.  I have had the weekend to refresh and this will be the week that I get my life together.

I think I approach Mondays the way some people approach the new year, with its resolutions.  I make resolutions every single Monday, believing that this is the week that will be the turning point in my life, the one where I make all the positive changes that will make me a balanced, healthy and properly put together human being.  And I’m always confident that I’m going to follow through this time.  A sample list of typical Monday resolutions goes like this:

• This is the week where I will give up sugar.
• This is the week where I will give up salt.
• This is the week where I will maintain perfect posture at my desk all day.
• This is the week where I will do all my homework in the evenings so I don’t have to do any on the weekend.
• This is the week where I will floss every night.
• This is the week where I will remember to feed the fish every single day.
• This is the week where I will not spend money on overpriced food items like fancy olives.
• This is the week where I will prepare my lunch the night before work so it’s ready in the morning.
• This is the week where I will iron all my clothes, including the ones I haven’t worn in over a year because they need ironing.  (You think I exaggerate, but the truth may be closer to two years.)
• This is the week where I will do some dusting.
• This is the week where I will get an early start on my Christmas shopping and card writing.
• This is the week where I will drink only water.
• This is the week where I will be more assertive.
• This is the week where I will start volunteer work to put my ideals into action.
• This is the week where I will keep my problems in perspective with the greater ills of the world and realize I have very little to complain about.
• This is the week where I will start going to the gym every single day.

These are my recurring Monday resolutions.  There are often others that get added in according to the season, but these are the ones that I have been making every Monday since I was about 15.  (Except the fish one, because I only got the fish a couple of years ago, and the olive one, because I didn’t buy food when I was 15.)

Why, you ask, am I writing a Monday post on a Thursday?  Because by Thursday, Monday’s optimism has given way to honest self-awareness, which is where I’m sitting right now.  I define myself as a pessimist, but I think that may just be my status from Thursday until Sunday.  In actuality, I start every week as an optimist, then slide rapidly past realism into pessimism.

By Thursday I am once again aware that yes, I have eaten sugar and salt and I will do so again and again and again; I am still choosing to wear the clothes that don’t need to be ironed; all of my homework is probably going to get done on Sunday night and maybe even on Monday during my lunch hour; my dental hygienist is going to give me crap next time I go; if my husband weren’t around my fish would be dead and I would probably be malnourished from eating only expensive olives while my dust bunnies multiplied themselves into a rebel army; I still take everything too seriously and mostly likely will continue to do so until my dying day.

Tonight I could have studied or ironed or dusted or done any number of things that needed to be done.  Instead — it being Thursday — I gave in to my inner darkness, my nasty, lazy id that stubbornly deters me from living up to my glorious potential.

Yes.  Instead, I made muffins.