Today I’m grateful for a Sunday night without the Scaries.

11.24.2024

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It’s Sunday night and I’m about to head to bed, and it just occurred to me that I’m not feeling my usual Sunday Scaries. I don’t know who coined this term, but I get the Scaries pretty much every Sunday night. It’s that point on Sunday evening when Sunday no longer feels like Sunday and instead becomes the pre-Monday anxiety zone. I start to think about all the things I need to do in the upcoming week and become frantic with my lack of preparedness for whatever is ahead of me. It doesn’t seem to matter how long or short my to-do list is or how much or how little prep work I’ve done. The Scaries seem to creep in every Sunday night about 7 p.m.

Looking objectively at my to-do list for tomorrow, I should definitely be panicked. I need to get to school super early to prepare for my day and I’m fairly certain I left my classroom a mess on Friday. I have a whole bunch of copies to make in the morning before school and I have a new student starting tomorrow that I need to prepare for as well. I did not get to the grocery store this weekend, and I have a hamper full of dirty laundry that did not get done. I also have a dentist appointment after school which means I have a month’s worth of flossing to make up for between now and then as well. Sounds like a recipe for a stressful start to the week, huh?

But for whatever reason, I’m as calm as can be. It might be because it’s a short week. Or maybe I’m just excited about the holiday ahead. It might have something to do with the fact that my friend Julie packed me a to-go serving of her homemade chicken soup for my lunch tomorrow. Or maybe I’m just excited to be around people again after a week of being sick and a weekend with too much germ-infested downtime.

Whatever it is, I’ll take it. Tomorrow and its impending busy-ness will be here before I know it, so I might as well enjoy a night of sound sleep without the Sunday Scaries haunting me. Bring it on, Monday! This girl is not even a little bit ready, but there’ll be a calm smile on my face that will convince you otherwise.