I Don't Like Mondays.

I just returned from lunch and took the long way back ... a long walk along the lake. It's weird how roads and paths and places that are so familiar, paths you take or places you see every day, can hold so many unique memories. I think of walking down the bike path to get ice cream cones with Jen K almost every summer day at 3:00. We'd sit outside at the picnic table and bitch about work and sweat. Little did we know that we'd both be pregnant within weeks (her) and months (me) and that by the time the next summer rolled around, she'd be back on the West Coast. Or I think about how, determined to get some exercise due to my complete panic over turning into a fatass while pregnant, I bundled up at lunch one day, big mummy coat, wool socks, giant crazy fake-fur lined hat with idiot straps, gloves, and headed out to go for a walk around the lake in the deadest part of a pretty dead winter. With wind chill it had to be like 10 or 20 degrees below zero, but it might as well have been a million. About halfway through my walk, as I gingerly avoided ice patches and literally leaned into the wind to make progress, I looked around and realized I was literally the only human being around. I actually laughed, thinking of people sitting in their offices, sipping their coffee, calling others to the window to say something like "Hey check this out - look at that jackass. Who the hell goes for a walk on a day like this?" It's weird what a great memory it is. Ice chunks floating around in the lake! The inability to feel my face! Icicles on my eyelashes!

I've realized, now that I'm a mom and my routine has totally changed, Sunday night blues have been replaced with Monday-afternoon blues. Sunday nights, for the first time since I went away to college, don't mean boo-hoo-the-weekend's-over. Quite honestly, they mean "Oh man, I get to shower and write e-mails and eat a decent lunch tomorrow". But, coupled with those highlights, comes the inevitable melancholy I feel starting at lunch (which explains my nostalgia attack on my walk back to work) and extending through the end of the day. I miss Walker. A lot. After weekends, even grumpy nothing special weekends, I really miss being away from him. This past weekend, however, was the best kind of weekend. So that makes a somewhat pleasant, none-too-challenging Monday like today into one giant colossal downer. This weekend we had perfect summer weather. Perfect. A whole weekend of perfect summer weather just doesn't happen here. "It's the kind of weather," I told Walker while we sat outside on a blanket, "that you wait all year for. The kind of weather you think about in January." Both days we went for walks and both days we ended our walks stretched out on a blanket, under one of the huge maple trees in our yard, pointing at the leaves overhead. We pointed at clouds and clapped, he babbled, I talked, and when the breeze kicked up I wrapped the edges of the blanket over his legs and hugged him. I could've stayed there, in those moments, forever, for the rest of my life, and I'd never be sad about what I'd be missing.