It’s Memorial Day weekend and our office is closed on Monday. A colleague asked if I was excited about the three day weekend. I said, “Yes, absolutely, I can’t wait.” But the truth is I didn’t always feel that way about three day weekends. There was this one summer when I loathed them. My roommate (best friend, stood up for me at my wedding, who I love and adore to this day) was studying abroad. I had good friends at work and a solid happy hour routine, but as the summer went on I developed a case of the mean reds…
The blues are because you’re getting fat and maybe it’s been raining too long, you’re just sad that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling? Holly Golightly Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1961.
“So how do you feel about three day weekends now?” the colleague asked. I told her I could take off weeks at a time and enjoy it. She said that I must be happy now. It’s true. I am happy now.
Here is an excerpt from my diary that summer, which wasn’t so much a diary as much as it was a long, never ending and never sent letter to my roommate Mickey (it has just a hint of DRAMA QUEEN)…
Saturday, June 20, 1998: Well I did my laundry, got pictures developed and bought a tape, and lied out in the sun on the roof. It has been one of the most exciting Saturdays ever…I’m hungry, broke, alone and unemployed – not too thrilled with the way things are going. I just can’t help to think that everything is OK and will be OK. I will pass happy and fulfilled.
Later that summer I met my husband.