I’m a little envious, I must say, of all social media’s ‘wholesome weekenders’ and their slow-cooking, feet-up-by-the-fire, novel-devouring antics!
My weekends, by contrast, are much less battery-restoring, and infinitely more likely to meet an exhausted - as opposed to an energised - end!
That said, there are two things to keep in mind here…or so I often tell myself whenever I happen to stumble across the kind of cottage-core instagram post that always leaves me aflame with log-fire-envy!
Firstly, the ‘wholesome weekend’ aesthetic should always be taken with a large pinch of perspective salt.
After all, no 48 hours is ever so alchemical as to exclude ALL forms of stress and banality!
Secondly, the concept seems to wrongly hinge on quantity over quality, with a pressure (in many cases) to squeeze as many creativity-feeding, soul-restoring extracurriculars as possible into the confines of 48 hours.
Lastly, I’m inclined to think ‘wholesome weekends’ give no account for the importance of boredom and stress, in permitting the wholesome to taste quite so sweet!!
Currently, my weekend time is mostly suctioned into the quicksand of kids' parties, uniform-washing and pipe-cleaner-figurine-crafting, but it’s for this very reason… that anything remotely quiet, creative or cultural feels like such a treat!
With the above in mind, I’m convinced I can still be a wholesome activity kinda’ person, not in spite of the 2.4 children... but BECAUSE of it!
So much is this belief, that I’ve spent January cherry-picking a select few fun, stress-relieving and pleasurable activities to dabble in sporadically, as a means to untether myself from my ‘normal’ (and perhaps self-limiting) habitat.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say the results so far have been ground-breaking (after all, one frosty walk does not a full tank make) but from a bigger-picture stance, what my half-hearted approach to ‘wholesome weekends’ proves is that the 'whole' is only what it is… because of the ‘some.’
Some painting.
Some spontaneous nature walking.
Some pages of a book.
Some random nods to mindfulness and creativity, without which...that enlivening elixir better known as 'the weekend', would undoubtedly be all the poorer!
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