It’s incredible how much I’m able to rejuvenate over the course of a measly two days of weekend. I leave the desk job on Friday evening and I am so locked up with work nonsense running through my mind that I have to force myself to take a deep, cooling breath of fresh air – the kind laced with freedom – and I have to remind myself, You’re done. The week is over. No more incessantly ringing office phones, no more irritating coworkers, no more sneak-eating meals at your desk. Just a lovely weekend staring you dead in the face, inviting you to Be Yourself and eat whenever you want to.

But then, almost immediately, another force takes over and I quickly become a classic Weekend Warrior without batting an eye; I shed my ugly desk job skin like a snake in the summertime and I become Myself. By 10pm on a Friday night I’ve forgotten entirely that I have anywhere to be on Monday morning. And by bedtime on Friday night, hopefully after an evening spent with good friends and good food, I am drunk on the potential of two entire days of anything and everything but offices.

I usually spend weekend days doing a combination of typical weekend things: I exercise, we clean the apartment and do laundry, I sit in the sunshine, I sleep in, I make a big breakfast or I enjoy a big breakfast made by the boyfriend, I have a couple drinks, I take walks, I go shopping – it’s totally average weekend stuff and I love every second of it.

There is one way in which my office worker’s weekend is not typical – I go to “work” again on Saturday night. Around 6pm, every Saturday for as long as I can remember, Kevin and I head into the city for a Harvard Sailing Team rehearsal and then a 9:30pm performance. (Kev is the tech manager for our shows.) As much as it’s terrifically fun, it can definitely put a dent in the whole Weekend Feeling of things. Responsibility? Real clothes? Pffft! But it’s the Weekend! Still, I have absolutely no real complaints about it – I get to see my friends and do something I love. And it certainly doesn’t take away my glowly Weekend Feeling.

By Sunday night, which I’ve hopefully spent in some debaucherous manner involving cupcakes or brownies, I’m high on life and thrilled to still be wallowing in such freedom. Although I go through the motions of attempting to get to bed at a reasonable time and setting the alarm clock for an unpleasantly early hour the following morning, it doesn’t dawn on me until I wake up on Monday that my party has come to a disappointing end.

I get myself to work Monday morning – that part’s no problem. But then. Then I sit down. At my desk. Which is dumb. And boring. And I stare at a computer. For hours. I try to get up and move around, but it’s nothing compared to the wild sense of freedom that was coursing through my veins 24 hours earlier.

And it’s okay. Like many others before me, I tolerate it. It doesn’t make me happy, but it’s also not the end of the world. It certainly is, however, a mild shock to the system to get reacquainted each week with the whole routine. No matter how I try to mentally prepare myself, I’m always befuddled on Mondays. By Tuesday morning, however, I’m back in the desk job groove. My body has readjusted to sitting, typing and picking up a phone over and over. My mind has readjusted to require very little of itself. And the partial coma seeps back in. I don’t intend for this coma to occur, but it does, so I have to fight myself in order to use my time productively during each day. It’s a skill I’ve yet to master.

You know how when you’re physical pain? Like a bad tooth ache or an ear ache or some other acute sensation that is mind-numbingly uncomfortable. And then something happens to relieve the pain. The medicine kicks in or you start to heal. And you feel high on the relief, on the absence of hurt. The juxtaposition of the pain next to the non-pain is so incredibly striking to you because you just lived through the transition from one to the other. But when you’re in the thick of the pain, standing in the middle of its ocean or, conversely, when you’re perfectly well, no pain for miles, you can’t quite imagine the opposite sensation. You can’t quite remember what it’s like to feel normal when you’re in pain, or painful when you’re fine. Because you’re so used to precisely where you are.

For me, Monday morning and Friday evening are the onset and offset of the pain, mild though it may be. And I really notice those transitions, those juxtapositions, as I watch them occur. But smack dab in the middle of a Wednesday, or in the middle of a Saturday, I can’t imagine feeling anything but the respective comatose or glee.

It’s amazing how quickly the human body and mind can adapt.