Sundays on my lips like a prayer

I used to harbor resentment for Sundays and those who enjoyed them. I have this belief, despite its inaccuracies and how misguided it is in reality, that Sundays are for two types of people: lovers and loners. Sundays are fantasies, verging on prayer. For most of my life, I have fallen into the latter category. Not bitterly, though. Admittedly, lonely sometimes. Who can blame me? It’s cemented there right in the label I created. For the longest time, my Sunday coffees were shared with no one but my meticulously curated music choices and the main character of the book I was living in at the time. It was quite peaceful, to be honest. The smell of espresso beans as I traversed the white nights of Dostoevsky or struggled to picture the provocative architecture of Ayn Rand as she bore on with her philosophical monologues. No, Sundays were never really that lousy. Lonely, at times, admittedly. 

The melancholy only really hit when the sun was low in the sky, threatening to dip below the horizon and night spilled over the edges of her last rays. On some Sundays, it was cynicism that bubbled underneath the surface of my skin, but on most Sundays, there was always melancholy. There is no feeling like slipping into your bed after a long day, after the end of a week. The comforter hugging your waist, envisioning that the pillow I rest my head on is somebody's shoulder. Anybody’s shoulder. It’s like letting out a breath you’ve been holding all day. There’s no feeling like it until it’s Sunday night. On Sundays, it used to be this reminder that nothing is different, not for a while now. Here is the empty bed you will be climbing into tomorrow and the next day, Wednesday and Thursday too, and maybe Friday will be different but there is no guarantee. On Sunday nights, it is not the comfort of coming home like it is on a Monday. On Sundays, it’s another admonition that Sundays are for lovers, a club that I was not a member of. 

It is both easy and difficult for me to admit that Sundays are different for me now. When I used to be in love, I used to wish life was an endless stream of Sunday mornings. I could die here, on a Sunday morning, wrapped between the sheets and the beating heart of someone I do not know anymore. I was torn between the joy of waking up to a warm body and dreading the responsibilities of tomorrow. But Sundays now are different. The way I write is similar to my Sundays, infused with the people I treasure dearly, whether they are in my thoughts or just a phone call away. It is easy for me to admit that Sundays are different now because I wake up next to the most beautiful green eyes and arms that hold me tight as we pretend to be asleep, a fruitless pursuit because the sun that streams through my blinds keeps us awake. It’s easy for me to admit because I have always longed to lounge in bed on a Sunday morning, sleepy eyes and raspy voices making conversation about nothing and everything at the same time. Dragging on the morning as long as we can, lazy kisses, and a peace that is quite indescribable. Oh, how lovely Sunday mornings have become.

It is difficult for me to admit that Sundays are different for me now. It is the fear that will continue to persist in my mind and in my heart, the fear of vulnerability, handing over my glass heart to potentially slippery hands. I believe that I am in my most fragile state on Sunday mornings. Nowadays, it seems like I wake up on a Sunday morning without any recollection of the burdens of the work week or the troubles of the day before. I experience Sunday mornings with reckless abandon, the only time I can really seem to enjoy the moment for as it is, being wholly present. It is difficult to admit that Sundays are different for me now because it is both so new yet so familiar at the same time. Sharing a Sunday morning with someone is the equivalent of letting them in on your biggest secret, and for me, someone who has spent so many Sundays with only the company of my solitude, my Sunday mornings have not been stretched to fit someone else in so long. I fear it, I love it.

I wonder how it came to be that Sundays have become so religious to me. I find my God in books and music, in walking down busy streets alone, cooking meals for one as jazz melodies croon to me in the kitchen. I worship the quiet of Sundays, an unspoken agreement of everyone in the city on how a Sunday should be spent. Sundays are something holy to me; my church is my peace. But now I have found something more to Sundays, prayer in the fingers that trace my spine and run through my hair. It’s nothing like a Friday night when I used to fall asleep next to a stranger and wake up on a Saturday morning next to a warm but stale and unfamiliar body. No, Sundays are something completely different to me. 

It is one thing for me to enjoy a Sunday with a friend, but a Sunday with a lover is a blasphemy and a miracle to me. I do not tread lightly with my Sunday mornings, so I both fear and admire the hands that hold my face and slowly melt away my resentment for Sundays. They are soft, but I worry for the day they can also harden, once again shattering the illusion that Sundays have become for me now. I can not help but cower. 

Sundays are fantasies, verging on prayer. Admittedly, not so lonely anymore.