Remember when weekends were fun?? When I was a kid I was always soooo excited for the weekend to arrive. Weekends meant rollerskating, swimming, playing house, climbing trees, riding bikes, and playing Marco Polo, skip-it, and Chinese jump-rope for more than just the few hours of daytime left after school – we had two entire days, from morning till night, for play-time. It was bliss.

And even though we all say we’re looking forward to the weekend as adults, weekends are now fun because we can get things done, not because it’s time to leave every ounce of responsibility behind and throw caution to the wind. Saturday and Sunday to-dos used to be “tag Julie,” “feed breakfast to my family of Cabbage Patch Kids, My Child dolls, and the Pound Puppies,” and “watch The Princess Bride.” But today, my list reads more like “Do groceries,” “organize bedroom closet” and “get oil change.” Hardly as much fun.

I caught a glimpse of “real-life weekends” when I was a teenager and started driving (and dating a Montreal boy long-distance) – my two primary “expenses” were my car insurance and gas, as well as my long-distance phone bills to Canada. I was lucky enough to have parents who owned an office cleaning company – they gave me four small offices to clean every weekend, and I made enough money to cover my weekly expenses. It would take me maybe three hours. The offices were closed on weekends, which meant I could go and clean them at any time from Friday evening till Sunday night. If I was smart I would actually take care of them after school on a Friday – then I didn’t have anything hanging over my head during the weekend. But when I had a busy teenager-weekend, and it was suddenly four o’clock Sunday afternoon and there was still work to do, it was awful. “It’s not fair, though,” I would whine to my unsympathetic parents (and rightfully so!). “It’s the weekend.” I had three measly hours of work to do – most of my friends had part-time jobs and did more like 20 hours of work a week after school as well as on weekends. True, they got to serve ice cream and bagels while I was scrubbing toilets in doctor’s offices (so gross), but I was also making double what they did and had to work three lousy hours.

While it’s true that I still enjoy the occasional plan-free relaxing weekend, when you’re a grown-up, you just can’t enjoy doing nothing without feeling guilty for the wasted time (at least I do). I may have spent yesterday catching up on cult-classic 80s flicks I’d never seen, but by 7pm I had to get up and wash the dishes as well as clean the bathroom – I felt so bad for having “wasted” a day on myself that I had to get something done.

I want a carefree weekend. I want a weekend where I don’t have anything to do but play hopscotch in my driveway, eat a Lunchable or boiled hot dog (without the worry about all the nitrates I’m ingesting), go fishing on the bridge with the neighbourhood kids, play “restaurant” at my friend’s house (and this time we won’t leave Tupperware in the oven so it melts when their mom preheats the oven!), play a few games of Mike Tyson’s Punch Out and ExciteBike, make some Shrinky-Dinks, feed my Sea Monkeys, watch TGIF (with Full House and Urkel), go sledding on my Smurf saucer, and snack on Fruit Roll-Ups and Gushers. I want staying up late to feel like a real treat. And I want to do it all without a care in the world. I miss those childhood weekends where nothing was planned and every Saturday and Sunday felt like the best Saturday and Sunday ever!

Where did the weekends really go?