Turning my back on the Sunday reset
When did Lazy Sunday stop meaning lazy Sunday?
Don’t you just love Sundays? And more specifically, don’t you just love Sundays in October?
Fresh bedding day. A day for cleaning and meal prepping hearty autumn soups and opening your windows as wide as they’ll go to let the fresh, cold air in. For setting yourself up for the week ahead by washing and scrubbing and planning. For being That Girl. For going for a long, breezy run along the river. For journaling and gratitude and yoga and getting Everything done before lighting a candle and watching a seasonal rom com in your beautiful, clean, living room with a camomile tea. Reset day.
Except I haven’t done any of that.
Because I’m tired.
I’d love to be able to tell you my exhaustion is noble and hard-earned. But it isn’t. I don’t have to raise kids or care for parents or work multiple jobs or survive any horrors. I don’t have to do anything that would be universally accepted as knackering.
And yet, I am still tired.
In an earlier draft of this piece, I dedicated a whole paragraph to justifying myself. I didn’t want you, my hypothetical Substack reader, to think I’m lazy. I spoke of my new job, my slightly busier schedule than usual, a cold I had last week… It was all very try-hard. And, actually, irrelevant.
Maybe I am lazy. Maybe I’m not trying hard enough. Maybe the new job is taking its toll. Regardless of what’s causing it, though, the fact remains that I woke up this morning and couldn’t think of anything worse than self-improvement.
We’ve all heard the phrase Lazy Sunday, and yet somewhere along the way it stopped being acceptable to do nothing, until you had first done everything else on your list.
And don’t get me wrong, I know all about healthy habits and filling your own cup and how exercise would actually increase my energy levels. I have got that down most of the time, I think.
Logically, I know I’d feel significantly better tomorrow if I went for a run today. But — and I can’t stress this enough — I don’t want to.
I want to bring my duvet onto my sofa like a child and watch seven episodes of Friends that I’ve already seen five times over. I want to spend my day off doing nothing. I want to let even more episodes of Friends run in the background while I scroll through Instagram.
I want screen time and ultra-processed food and old, comfortable, non-aesthetic pyjamas. I want to light the candle even though my dishes aren’t done. I want to watch a film even though I haven’t reset the sofa cushions. I want to ignore the human-shaped dent in that same sofa from where I’ve been rotting all day. I want to have a nap. I want to eat pizza and be okay with the fact I haven’t done any real exercise in the last few days. Â
Because I am tired.
There are periods in life where you can and should push yourself — if that’s where you are right now, great, I applaud you. I will get there soon, I’m sure. But there are also periods when you need to accept that you are allowed to unwind before an everything shower and a deep clean of your kitchen and whatever other productive tasks TikTok tells us we should do on Sunday. Periods when simply doing the bare minimum and then watching something mindless is enough. There is beauty in those days, too, however grim they may look from the outside.
And that’s why, today, on this perfect, crisp October Sunday, I’m turning my back on the Sunday reset in favour of lying down and scrolling and eating pizza and maybe having a nap.
Because, if I haven’t said it already, I’m deeply, unapologetically tired.
About The Content Girl:
Opinions, insights, and the occasional marketing musing from a professional Content Writer giving writing in her own voice a go. You can expect:
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Loved reading this, especially on a Sunday.
I'm a fan of the Sunday reset personally, but in recent (tired) weeks I prefer doing little tasks through the week so that I can just enjoy a big Sunday lie-down.
Honestly I couldn't agree more. With hustle culture and everything else I feel like we're always made to feel guilty for resting. And when most people rest, it's not actually resting. It's ticking it off a to-do list so we can say we've rested.