Just don’t ask if I had a good weekend

I hated that question for 10 years. I never felt like I had the right answer. Unless I knew that your definition of “good weekend” would match mine, I was always unconsciously translating the goodness of my weekend into your terms and falling short.

So even if it was a perfectly lovely weekend to me, which it often was since I was choosing what to do, the goodness would get lost in my internal translation. Until I couldn’t even see the goodness anymore and felt depressed about my lack of {insert culturally accepted weekend activity here}.

Part of the problem is the gap between the idealized Good Weekend according to popular culture and my own preferences.

But even when my preferences match the culture’s, something gets lost in translation. Like: I usually meet a friend for a glass of wine on Friday evening, but for some reason it doesn’t seem as glamorous as watching other people do it.

And I often go to brunch with a girlfriend at my favorite neighborhood cafe on Sundays. This seems to fit the mold of an approved Good Weekend, too. But again, when I do it it doesn’t really seem to count. I’m already there, but I’m missing the essence.

Nowadays my weekdays are already good, so there’s not so much pressure to enjoy! enjoy! enjoy! the weekend. In fact, my weekend could stand to look a little more like my weekdays.

Funniest thing is realizing that when people ask this question, they don’t care so much about the answer. They’re just making conversation. A simple “excellent, thanks! how was yours?” would do.

I think I’m realizing that the important thing is to get really clear on your own definition of Good. And then to let yourself like what you like and be who you are. Heh.

The more I work on my stuff, the more clearly I see just how much of the self-discovery quest is about exactly that: getting clear on my particular needs and wishes, and then giving myself permission to want those things and to go after them.

To like what you like, do what you want, be who you are. Not easy, but worthwhile.