Day 163: The Sunday Syndrome

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A prime example of me indulging in the Sunday feeling - 2011

This is somewhat of a complex point I'm trying to verbalize but I'll try to be as clear as possible to assist myself to understand. Perhaps I will simply try to begin by describing my day.

In the morning we went to an event with theatre folks to advertise a new play. We ran around dancing and singing and jumping in the cold winter air, and this was really refreshing and enjoyable because of the fresh air and clear sunshine. So I had already received quite a good amount of oxygen for the whole day, when in the afternoon I was waiting for a bus and breathed more of the fresh air – and I simultaneously felt a desire to be outdoors breathing and a fear of suffocating indoors. This also linked to the sunshine: I was clinging onto the outdoors (sun, air and exercise) because I feared returning home where I would suffocate in the dark alone. I realized I link this to the anxiety I used to feel when being alone for too long without socializing and/or fresh air / change of environment. This indicates the fear is still here, even though I am these days too busy to notice. Usually the anxiety is linked to boredom and I have not had a chance to get bored lately.

Also, as I was returning home from theatre I noticed this feeling of “freedom” because of some unusual things I “got to” do: leave early from theatre, go to the grocery store, go to the centre while it's still lit up and people are around. As I was walking through the town I recognized this to be a certain kind of “Sunday feeling”: some years ago when I was still living with a former boyfriend and lived a different kind of a life we used to do some “special” stuff on Sundays because they were our days off, going to the cinema or to a restaurant or meeting some friends and having a drink or watching movies or whatever fun stuff we didn't have time to do together on other days. Sunday was a day of “freedom” when it was accepted to slack off and do nothing of relevance.

So as I was out today I noticed an anxiety regarding the Sunday feeling, because I had not planned to use my Sunday on anything “special” or “fun” but was simply on my way home to keep working on my tasks. I thought of some things I could do, like who I could call, where I could go, what I could do now that I had an unexpected unplanned evening – even though I had already decided I would go home and work. I felt bad because the situation fit a pattern and I wasn't on my way to live according to it.

And so I realized it comes back to the fear of being alone, as I have linked this Sunday feeling to socializing, and the lack of socializing means that I will be alone at home – which I fear will be an experience like it has been in the past when I was more prone to anxiety. The fear is of course unfounded because I realize I am the one who creates the anxiety and thus am also the one to dissolve it.

I realize I am afraid to face the fact that as a single being separate from other beings I am totally alone. The darkness, silence and immobility of that empty void of no one else but me is intimidating, suffocating, terrifying. Just darkness and the outline of my body – and eventually, not even the body. Just darkness and me.

I know that because we are all equally alone within ourselves we are together all one – a group of undeniable equality as within one body there is always only one being. But I do not yet realize this. Whenever I think of other beings as support and assistance I wish to cling onto them and rely on them and ask to be saved – as if I'm looking for an emergency exit as soon as there's hope of one because the darkness is too fearsome. I am not stable in the void where only myself exists; whenever another appears I fall from stability.

There are some meditation practices that deal with this, and I am going to try some of them and see what I discover from them. They might be of some assistance in finding some new insights into this issue. I don't know how far self-forgiveness will take me, but this too I will utilize. The thing that is problematic about this point is that it is most difficult to bring into practical lived life as there is no training field for learning to stand completely alone unless I cut off all of my close relationships which I have used for dependency, because I would simply create new ones to replace the old and that is no solution. I cannot and will not isolate myself from the society to learn independence – there's simply got to be another way.

So today I was able to breathe, move and talk my way out of the anxious thoughts, fears and desires that occurred. I was quite alright being by myself – I don't want to glorify my experiences, but yeah, I am enjoying my own company. I don't know what the key here is, but this time around what seemed to work was considering the practical side of things and appreciating that which is here.