Tuesday's Gone
How can a day of the week become your mortal enemy?
Back when I worked a regular Monday through Friday 8am till normal quitting time kinda job, Monday was always such a big deal. “A case of the Monday’s” to quote on of my favorite movies of all time. Everyone dreads Monday…having to come back to work after two days off, knowing it’s a new week with new challenges and new headaches and who knows what else. Plus, you just had two days off. Who wants to leave the joys of not working to go back to work!
I never dreaded Monday like that. Remember I talked about being prepared for the big things and handling those in stride,1 and that’s how I am with life in general. I’m always thinking and planning ahead. Thursday and Friday I would start planning and preparing for Monday, so when we came back from the weekend we were already ready to handle any of the new week hazards and pitfalls that might keep us from hitting the ground running. But Tuesday! Tuesday was always the worst day of the week for me. Because much like what I’ve been going through (and wrote about) lately, Tuesday was always full of little things that I hadn’t/couldn’t plan for. Weather the storm of Monday and everything you knew that would throw at you, then on Tuesday catch all of the little things that no one could have expected. It’s always the damn little things. But I haven’t worked a “regular” job for a number of years now (my schedule rotates four on/four off), and I don’t really have a Monday/Tuesday as far as work goes. So I had been able to get out of that pattern. For a while…
Now Tuesday has taken on a whole new identity. It’s not just a challenging work day that’s going to throw me some curveball… it’s become my nemesis. Because every Tuesday is another week without my son. It doesn’t help that somehow my body knows what time it is all the time, and every day at 7:14 AM Eastern I instinctively look at my phone. If I’m asleep, I’ll wake up. If I’m on my way home from work, I’ll look down. If I’m home visiting my parents or on the road and still in Central time, it’ll be 6:14. But every single day I look at my phone. I don’t even think about it…it just happens. And every Tuesday I get hit with a flood of random memories and thoughts and hear songs and see little dumb reels and just get overwhelmed by reminders of him. 5 weeks, and every Tuesday still hits me as hard as that morning. Sometimes I think maybe harder. And I don’t think it’ll matter if it’s 50 weeks or 500 weeks…I think, on some level, every Tuesday from now on is probably going to hit me to some extent.
I appreciate what a friend who lost a son several years ago told me… he said “I can lie to you, but it won’t help. He’s always going to be up here (as he pointed to his temple). But it changes with time.” And in some ways that’s comforting. I know I’ll always have his memories in my mind, and I’ll always carry his love in my heart. And so will everyone else who knew him and loved him. He’s been visiting us and encouraging us and reassuring us that he’s alright…all of us in different ways that don’t make it hurt any less, but give us some comfort that we’re going to be alright too. Eventually. And it’s alright that every Tuesday is going to suck. And I know, just like when I was working a job with normal hours, that nothing can prepare me for the little things that are going to hit me every Tuesday; I also know that every Tuesday will come and go, and for as much as they’ll hurt they’ll also remind me of all the good times and the love. And as long as I can focus on those, I can make it to next Tuesday too.
