I was listening to a Cat Stevens concert the other day and he was introducing his song “Sad Lisa” by saying that he used Lisa as a disguise. The song is really about him and he just wasn’t honest enough to say so.
I thought that to be poignant and have been thinking about it.
What’s wrong with admitting how we honestly feel? Most of us project how we want to be perceived rather than simply be ourselves. How we really are at the moment. It appears to be alright if we’re tired and meet a friend or go out. We may have bags under our eyes and repeatedly yawn and that is alright.
Admitting sadness…well that seems to be something else entirely.
It means that we’re not happy with the way things are. Or who we are with. Or who we are not with. Or what we do. Or what we don’t do.
In the not too distant past I dreaded Monday’s and they began to kidnap my Sunday’s. I would be sitting here and my mind would be focused on all of the things that needed to be done the next day. This was at the expense of my wife.
Now former wife.
She told me recently that I’ve romanticized my recollections of our Sundays together; that I’ve made them into memories that are not true. I would be gearing up to save the world Mondays through Fridays only to collapse on Friday nights. Saturdays were our enjoyable days. Monday kidnapped Sunday.
I wrote a lot about how I hated Mondays. They were sad writings as I look back on them now. I was unhappy with who I’d become and no longer satisfied with what I was doing. Unhappy with the things that I wasn’t doing which was to take her away and do things that we’d never done.
And the bitch is that I knew all of this. I said it to her. I said it to other people. And I had other people say, “Oh you can’t possibly be serious! Look at everything that you’ve got! Look at how popular and important you are! What would we possibly do without you?”
Now I’ve learned that sadness is born when you don’t do the things that you know you need to do. You need to do them for you most of all. Sometimes you need to do them for others but that is rare I think.
I look forward to Mondays now while I dread Sundays. Sunday’s may be romanticized in my head but that is how I want my life to be. Long walks with the one I love, talking and holding hands, and being quiet and thanking God for the touch of her hair, skin and breath. Having wine in bed or watching movies or listening to music. Just celebrating the joyfulness of being where I actually am.
I don’t have that on Sundays. I used to but I gave it away for things that were important but they weren’t the most important things.
My friend Michael Ruffin posts prayers on Face Book every day and most every day I read them. We went to seminary to together and he obviously wants to shatter the record of friends on Face Book because he and I have reconnected after thirty years. Today he prayed:
Sunday is a day that plays a double role.
It is the first day of a new week
It feels like the last day of the old week
As such, Sunday provides us with the opportunity to reflect upon and evaluate the old week and to look forward and pray for the new week.
And that is what Sundays have become for me. The past is sad and I admit that. But I pray for the future. And I believe in it with everything that is within me. And it is a romanticized place. Full of love and friends and happiness and fulfillment.
