All the illustrations in this post are by Sarenur Türk Koçak. Sare is an architect based in Turkiye. She also makes puzzles! Follow her Instagram @sayu.go.
Anyway, I feel like rambling today. Would you mind so very much if I go stream of consciousness today? Well, the great thing about blogs (and every kind of content) is you can just stop reading. But stick around if you want to get to know me more today.
So the title of this blog post should really be "What my weekends should look like all the time." The "all the time" part is important because my weekends do kinda look like this. It's not just the single and child-free women who enjoy this kind of soft life.
(Gosh, I am so ready for my soft life era.)
When I was a teen, this had been the plan. And Sare's illustrations made me remember that. Work all week, then spend weekends cuddled up with a book in bed or sprawled on the sofa listening to music. Notice there is no man or children in my teen fantasies. My reality has a man and 3 sons in it!
What happened? Well, I fell in love. And he was able to convince me that my precious solitude and peace were worth giving up for his company and the chaos of our children. So far, so good. I won't lie: There are many, many times I feel wistful for my solitude. Marriage and motherhood can be too much for a woman who likes to be alone. But I love my family very much, though they bewilder me at times. Why do they (husband included) have so many needs? Why do they need me so much? Why do they like talking to me? Why do I have to eat with them (I think one of life's greatest pleasures is eating alone)? Why must I give up reading my book for them (another great life pleasure)?
The answer to that is because they love me. And so, it's okay. I love them, too.
I don't have many friends. My friends are my friends because we can go for long stretches of time not talking or seeing each other. That is what I prefer. The ones who needed nurturing fell away. I don't understand the constancy of friendship. If we really are friends, then there is no need to keep assuring ourselves of this friendship. Clinginess is a sign of insecurity.
And then I went ahead and got married and had babies!
My husband isn't clingy, though. Thank the heavens. Whenever I see couples who are constantly together, I feel suffocated. I saw a celebrity couple before where he was in her space all the time. People swooned, "How romantic!" I just thought, "How invasive."
I guess that's one good reason our marriage works. I don't think I could stand to be with a man who desperately needed me. I respect a man who is whole on his own, who can be happy with his own company. A man who needs someone else to complete him is a dangerous man. They are fearful, insecure, jealous. They are not real men.
I cannot stand and will not suffer a person like that. As Astrid told her husband in Crazy Rich Asians, "It is not my job to make you feel like a man. I can't make you into something you're not." Literally the only good line in that movie.
Ladies, when a man gets jealous or insecure, run.
So what are my weekends like? I still wake up early. At 6, 6:30, 7, thereabouts. But I don't get up till 9. Or until my bladder tells me so. I don't prepare breakfast because I do that 5 days a week. The kids, who wake up late, rummage around the kitchen. Most Sundays, my husband and kids make pancakes. I'm the first one up, so I make myself a cup of coffee and then do the laundry. I handwash the kids' uniforms and our underwear. The rest of our clothes, sheets, and towels, I send off to the laundromat.
I clean a little. I ought to clean more, but I'm tired. I cook. And then after lunch is when I do everything illustrated by Sare here. I read Wattpad or a paperback. I make the rounds on Facebook, Twitter, Threads, and Instagram. Then I nap. If I have time, I do self-care. I spend an hour in the bathroom, washing and conditioning my hair, scrubbing my body raw, applying oil, lotion, and all my preservatives, like face masks, hair masks, acids, deep hydration stuff, foot scrub, buffing my nails or putting on polish, etc, etc. If all my weekends were like this, I think I'd be drop-dead gorgeous. As it is, I'm usually doing chores and then sleeping away the afternoons. Self-maintenance can wait.
My favorite weekends are when I laze around like the women in these pictures and do absolutely nothing. Those soft-life weekends are rare.
During the school year, weekends are tough. The laundering of the uniforms. Buying stuff they need for school. Helping with homework. Managing all the clutter and chaos of schoolboys. During long breaks (Holy Week, sem break, Christmas break, and summer), everything slows down, and I'm happy.
That's why I miss quarantine. I don't miss COVID. But I sure miss when we were all just home. Life was perfect for me those years.
My weekends are never quiet. With a full house, it's very noisy. There's always someone playing the guitar or the piano. There's always someone singing (that would be me and my middle boy). There's always music. And video games. And movies. It's a very noisy home, but I can nap through all that racket. I'm that tired.
My husband complains a lot when he's cleaning up. It stresses out the kids. It doesn't bother me. I think it's just his way of cleaning. My mother and father were the same. I think it helps them clean. I'm the same way, except I sing when I clean and cook. My Lola Auring told me not to do that because she said it attracts bad luck into the home. Or that I'd end up marrying an old man, and she gives herself as proof. My lolo is 14 years older than her. Well, I married a man just 3 years older, and since I sing really badly, I guess that's the bad luck there.
My husband says he likes my playlists. I sing stream-of-consciousness, too, so if I started with an '80s song, then it's going to be an hour of me singing '80s songs! My kids must've gotten used to my singing because today I sang "American Pie" and they sang along. They already know the old songs I sing because that's how often I sing. Badly, yes, but I seem to still make them love music!
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