It’s the first day of the weekend. Traditionally these are the days when most people spend time with friends and family. From the ages of 22 to 33 I’ve either worked a Saturday or since I normally work them I’m see as unavailable.

It sucked. It felt like I was missing out. It surely didn’t help my biggest fear of abandonment. I felt like the black sheep.

You see, I worked in retail and at a church. My Saturdays were at the mercy of work needing me first. Time with family and friends came second. And it became such a distant second that, again, my family and friends would always forget that I’d be busy on Saturdays. This created tension.

I know this created tension and disappointment with my former wife and her family. I would share my frustrations and ultimately she would have my back. That didn’t change the underlying feeling of disappointment from her and her family.

Retail was always a struggle to plan free time on Saturdays. So when I started at my, then, church I was hopeful. The church has a Saturday night service but I figured it’d have most of the day to be available.

That sadly wasn’t the case. You see most plans started in the afternoon and carried through into the evening and even night. I don’t know what I was thinking. This all makes sense now, but at the time it didn’t. Even though I was more available I essentially wasn’t. At church I was the production lead which meant that I was responsible for every service happening from a tech aspect. Being the only designer, too, meant that I was ensuring all the graphics and content were ready for the Saturday night service as changes would typically happen hours before the start of service.

This Saturday free time would quickly dwindle as I started to work most Saturdays from 2 to 9 as after service there would be things we’d need to improve before Sunday.

The struggle was that I loved what I did at the church so much. I was really good at it, but ultimately I found myself not equipped at the time to handle it for my wellbeing.

2 years later I would depart from the church. Months later my wife, at the time, would depart from me. Oh, and during this time I would get let go from a local creative agency.

Needless to say I sought out therapy.

Times are better, but here I am on a Saturday sitting at my dinner table writing about how I despise Saturdays.