What Day of the Week is It?

May 2023

By Richard Fleming

Photo courtesy of Nigel Tadyanehondo

I have decided to spill one of my peer group’s most closely guarded secrets. I do so hesitantly. I am afraid making it public might increase inter-generational conflict. But as a long time advocate for open communication, I think we boomers need to acknowledge one of our truths.

What I confess today is this: when we seniors wake up in the mornings, we often do not know what day of the week it is.

No doubt this idea seems unfathomable to those inhabiting Gen X and younger – the reliable, trustworthy folks who must go to work every day to make a living and contribute to the Social Security trust fund. For working people, each day of the week carries unique significance and high meaning. Each day feels distinct because of the work schedule.

For those working a Monday-through-Friday day job, for example, they wake up Monday morning acutely aware of what day of the week they are entering. Mondays herald a long and tiring work week ahead.

Tuesday mornings are slightly less jarring since only four days remain before the weekend.

On Wednesdays, folks wake up with a small sense of relief, knowing they’ve arrived at Hump Day, halfway through the week.

On Thursday mornings, the coming relief is palpable.

And no working-age person would ever wake up on a Friday morning, wondering what day it is. Not with the weekend ahead.

Saturday and Sunday mornings are celebratory. The alarm clock is less demanding. Breakfast can expand. Though time with kids and completing errands occupy many hours of the weekend, people’s time is usually more flexible than during the week.

Folks with other varieties of work schedules view each day of the week from the context of their own particular labor calendar. But they are never in doubt about what day it is when they awake.

Why is it so different for seniors, especially those of us further into retirement? Our focus upon awakening is not on what day of the week it is. Our attention is directed at trying to get out of bed, empty our bladders, and find our way into the kitchen to put on some coffee. Whether it is Monday or Thursday or even Saturday does not really matter. Each day loses its unique “feel” and significance. Life’s weekly periodicity ebbs.

There are some markers which distinguish one day from the next. Putting recycle and trash bins at the curb always comes on a specific day, so that helps keep us oriented in time and space. Regular weekly volunteer activities and babysitting responsibilities can also serve as identifiers for specific days. Holidays like Mother’s Day and Thanksgiving which take place on specified days of the week are very useful. But there is no denying that for older folks, the week’s seven days grow increasingly homogenized.

If I may be so bold, I will expand my revelation even further. For many of us seniors, not only are we often unaware of what day it is upon awakening, we often don’t know what day we’re living through in the mid-afternoon. Even night time can be kind of dicey. And the older we get, the more the days blend together. I have a harder time recalling what day it is now than I did two years ago, and I doubt the situation will improve two years from now. After all, why is it important to know whether today is Monday or Friday? Or some other day for that matter?

I do not consider my waning awareness of what day it is to be a problem. For seniors, this phenomenon is a feature, not a bug. With no work schedule looming over our heads, we can accurately consider each day to be a Saturday.

Of course young, working-age people would never mistake a Tuesday for a Saturday. These two days have less in common than cod liver oil and ice cream. And it’s cute how working people are so happy when approaching one of those three-day weekends that occur about 10 times per year. I get it. I used to feel the same way. Those long weekends were rare and special.

So the truth is now out. My peers and I have the privilege – and the responsibility – of enjoying recurring seven-day weekends. I understand this may be tough for Gen Xers, Millennials, and Zennials to learn about. But I will not allow myself to feel guilty. Unending weekends are one of the few and diminishing perks of reaching old age.

Since I now detect some rising intergenerational tension, I want to offer up one more reveal which I hope will lower the temperature and perhaps yield an armistice. Most seniors would gladly give up our endless weekends if it meant we could avoid the many and expanding disadvantages of growing old. Younger folks should not envy our seven-day weekends. As enjoyable as they are, they are far from idyllic. A year filled with Saturdays can become ordinary, even dull. Living through work weeks is what makes weekends so enjoyable.

I hope this final reveal is viewed by the laboring generations as an olive branch. Younger folks should be in no rush to live the way we older folks do. Young people need to keep working to maintain their own happiness. We seniors need them to always know what day of the week it is. It helps ensure our retirement benefits remain intact.

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