Every Saturday, I wake up in a bad mood. Having often spent Monday to Friday being an organisation machine, planning activities, social outings and meals as though it were a career (it is, in fact, my career), I operate under the assumption that Saturday is going to be spent relaxing and doing nothing. Saturday is going to be the day we hang out as a family, play board games and engage in the kind of wholesome activities reserved for Disney movie montages. In reality, by the time I have emerged from my bedroom, my husband has disappeared on his 157th workout of the week and my kids, who are only allowed iPads at the weekend, have also disappeared. They’ve been sucked into a vortex of YouTube and Roblox and other gaming platforms I don’t understand.
I, meanwhile, have no idea what to do with myself. So I resort to stomping around the house, like a demented Godzilla in Lululemon. “Get off your screens!” I shout at the children. “Let’s build a treehouse!” They only look up from their tablets to note to each other that, “Mummy is raging again.” By the time my husband has come back, refreshed after an hour of being alone, I have lost it completely. “Let’s spring clean!” I suggest. “What’s wrong with you? Just relax. It’s the weekend,” he replies. He is right, it is and I should. But I can’t. If we have nothing in the diary, I just end up feeling frightfully restless. Is it just me? After complaining to my life coach about this, she makes the suggestion that I also plan my downtime. “Schedule in the board game,” she says. “Or schedule in an hour of doing nothing. It will make you feel less disorientated and more anchored when the weekend comes.” Her advice makes sense. But I am resistant to the idea. I thought relaxation was meant to be the opposite of planning. Or are we just living in an age where every minute of our day needs to be accounted for in order for us to feel satisfied? What do you think of scheduling your relaxation time? Is it the sign of insanity or the only way, when leading such hectic lives, to wake up on a Saturday morning in a good mood?