Monday Mornings

Despite the song, I really do like Mondays. For me they represent the promise of a new exciting adventure.

Monday mornings are kind of like the sunrise of the week, you want to roll over and make the weekend last a moment of two longer but you know that if you get up and greet the week you're going to feel so much better for it. And of course it helps a little if it's been the hottest night of the year as peeling back the bedclothes is not such a daunting task.

It's funny, everyone always says they want longer weekends, more holidays, less work, but you only have to look around to see that's not how we really think deep down. Like how kids by the end of the summer holidays are missing their friends. They say they don't want the summer to end, but with every other breath they are talking about who they are looking forward to seeing when they get back to school, what classes they are going to be in, when their sport is starting up again and all the good stuff that makes growing up so great.

And how many times have you found yourself at the end of a trip saying words like '... it's been fantastic but it'll be good to get home ...' While we are on the road it's easy to get caught up in the endlessness of the moment and more than once in my life I've thought it would be great to just pack my bags and head off for an endless winter or an endless summer, chasing the snow or the surf as the wind blows.

I remember vividly at the end of year 12 planning with my best friend Sandra to pack our guitars and head to Perth. We knew no one there and had no idea what we were going to do when we arrived, but at the time it seemed like the best idea in the world, full of excitement and a million miles from home. That plan almost gave my father a heart attack and my mother didn't hold back in telling us what she thought of it. Having started school early, we were both only 17 and I guess far too young for our parents to let go. Yet even now, almost 35 years later, there are times when I wonder who I might have become had we just packed our bags and headed west.

I wouldn't have gone to Uni, at least not that year. Maybe I would have stayed west forever. Or maybe I would have kept on travelling and seen the world several times over. Or maybe I would have come home, a little wiser and wearier for the experience. But I'll never know because I chose the path I chose and for that I am now who I am.

So to Monday morning, which is fast becoming afternoon, no matter how perfect the sunset was yesterday, or the moonrise last night, it is impossible to look at the sunrise and not contemplate what is to come. And therein lies the choice, do we stay in bed trying to relive what has been or get up and discover all that is possible in what lies ahead?