We were misled as children about many things, for certain, but chief among them was the sanctity of the weekend. Few respect it nowadays.

As a child in school, you learned to tolerate Monday and Tuesday and suffer through Wednesday so you could reach Thursday and look forward to Friday. When the 3:00 PM bell rang on that fateful day, you were home free, riding the bus with windows down or carpooling with your older sibling.

When that moment arrived, there was nothing but light ahead of me. My soul was warm, and my insides felt weightless as the burden of keeping time and fulfilling obligations sloughed off my shoulders like a lead apron at the dentist’s office. Why? Because the weekend was holy.

I can see it now. No, I can feel it. The buzz in my stomach and limbs as I contemplated the possibilities ahead — the pick-up ball games, the nights at the movies, the dusk-to-dawn N64 tournaments, the games of tag that only had to end when the sun set, the dinners with family when you felt no dread about tomorrow. That is, until Sunday evening rolled around.

The child has no choice in the matter. The employee scarcely has one either but is often compensated for the loss of life that entails working the weekends.

Cape Lookout, NC
Playing with LEGO. My photo.

The hired gun, however, always has a choice. The freelancer, the gig worker, the self-employed. No doubt, his arm is often twisted, or he feels some sort of earned or unearned obligation to sacrifice the days he was taught to hold sacred, all to the idol of a promissory note issued by a private central bank operating the world’s currency. But he still has a choice.

He may choose to admit his sacred days are indeed for sale, but at a higher price. He may choose to delude himself and believe that Saturday and Sunday are merely the sixth and seventh weekdays. Or he may politely decline, even if he has nothing to do at all. No plans, no ambitions, no childlike yearnings of yesteryear, when the weekends arrived with a quiet pageantry inside the mind. He may simply choose to decline on principle and on faith. Faith that no matter how uneventful the weekend might prove to be, it’ll contain the richest stuff of life you could ever hope for. Simply gazing out the window and watching the fog burn away in the morning sun, or going for a walk while it rains, or merely sitting with family and friends with nothing burdening the mind… that’s worth preserving.