Blue Sundays.

Sundays are depressing. The only good thing about a Sunday is waking up and realising that staying in bed is an option. Sundays became an issue for me when I went to boarding school. We had to go back to that awful place on Sunday afternoon. I would get up early on Sunday morning to make the most of the half a day I had, Mum was usually nagging about cleaning school shoes and packing suitcases, but I was half way out of the door, surfboard under my arm, heading for the solace of the waves. The sinking feeling of having to leave the water and trudge home is still with me. The depressingly green suitcase open on my bed in the sanctuary of my little room signified the end of my freedom.  The resigned silence in the car all the way to Cape Town and the wind.  I don't know why, but it always seemed to be windy.  It whistled around that old school and rattled the sash windows.  Even though there was an excited air among the other girls, catching up with news and weekend exploits, I just felt flat and sad.  Another week of horrible food, silly rules and bitchy girls, of wishing the days would hurry by and Friday afternoon magically be. I would stuff everything into that damn green suitcase and wait for my Dad's white Ford Escort to appear. The anticipation was excrutiating. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for the full-time boarders, stuck there for weeks on end until the end of term. I don't think I would have survived that. I thank my lucky stars I was not one of them. One of the best and worst days of my life was when I was asked to leave that school for not conforming to the system. I was not particularly badly behaved, but I was so desperately unhappy I didn't care to toe the line and be a "well-adjusted young lady", whatever that means! They did not approve of my surfing, I refused to take my surfing posters off the wall, my hair was wild, I struggled to tame it and that was an issue. Oh, the petty list went on and on. My Mother was naturally mortified that I had been dismissed from one of the "best" schools in Cape Town and I felt I had committed the ultimate sin letting her down like that, but I was secretly elated. I was finally free. And Sundays, well, I still have the need to pinch myself to ensure that I am in the here and now because the residual angst feeling from those days still remains.