Sunday Hangover

Sunday's are hard days for me right now.

As much as I'm trying to embrace and really be okay with this whole "new normal" and routine that has come the last month or two since I moved into Grandma's basement, I'm just not there all the time yet.

I miss what I had.

I miss having a roommate to laugh and debrief the day with - one who I knew wouldn't share everything about my life with everyone she knew.

I miss the freedom of not feeling on edge all the time, waiting and watching.

I miss living in a peaceful apartment, without the crazy spiritual realities.

And I miss the routine.

And Sunday's underscore all of that.

Sunday used to be a day I guarded jealously.  That was my day for rest.  I didn't book social stuff on that day.  It was a day for me, or for me and God.

I went to the zoo early in the morning, just as it was opening, while it was still quiet.

I cooked a fancy breakfast at a leisurely pace.

Sometimes I shopped.

But I rarely did "work" or had a schedule.

In the new normal, Sunday is not a day of rest anymore. 

The zoo is out, at least in the early morning hours there that I loved, because I need Sunday mornings to accomplish all of the tasks that are just so much easier to do when Grandma is at church.  Laundry, cleaning, garbage.  All of the little things that she is nosy about, or has an opinion on, or handles differently that I do.

And I usually manage to start out with a brave face, but by the end of the day the things I miss, the things that feel like such huge losses, hit me.

Yesterday they hit particularly hard.

I went to bed with the sort of bad headache that comes from the combination of tears spilled and tears suppressed.

It's Monday.  A new start as a guy from the second floor reminded me as we boarded the elevator together this morning.

It's Monday, but I have a little bit of a Sunday hangover to fight off first.