There ARE No Weekends!

As it is, for the better part of the last six years, my previously well-delineated schedule has ceased to feature what the average citizen-drone calls weekdays and weekends. Oh, I have not forgotten which days most of the rest of society regards as the weekend, but it no longer matters to me, either in an attitudinal sense, or in terms of actual outcomes.
Occasionally, when my mind settles on this state of affairs during its wandering, it can still startle and puzzle me. But only briefly.
This all began, really, during the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, 2006; and on a day which, back then, I still considered to be a weekday. It was cold, but not brutally so. I sloughed out to my car in the winter morning darkness, turned the engine over, and, with a deafening rumble, rolled out of the dismal parking lot of a dismal complex, and headed for my job.
But I never made it. Within two miles of work - and two and a half times that distance from my apartment ('home' being an inapt appellation for the suburban slum where I slept) - my fifteen year-old Buick breathed its last along the right lane of a main thoroughfare just as morning drive-time was kicking into gear.
And in that moment, as I sat, hands at ten and two, gazing at my filthy windshield, I simply gave up.
I carefully exited the car, closed the driver's door, and began to walk. At first - impelled by the habit of duty, I suppose - I trudged in the direction of my job. But I hadn't gone far before I realized the futility of this. You see, I had already received, at that point, a final warning about tardiness. This occasion would be my last strike. The end. I considered giving a sibling a call; asking for a ride. But I thought better of that, realizing there could be no possible worse time of the day for such a disruption. And, although I don't specifically recall considering it, I imagine the thought of a taxi must have crossed my mind, and been quickly dismissed for some reason; likely its cost.
And so, after having walked a short distance south, I suddenly, deliberately pivoted about, and resignedly began a northward trek, toward ho . . . the apartment.
Things might have been worse.
Sure, I'd just effectively given up on everything; decided in a moment's time that I accepted the loss of my job, would live off of my retirement savings and tax refund till they ran out, would hunker down in my apartment, eating and Internet surfing, and not telling a soul that I was out of work, and would - ultimately - end my days in a barracks-style apartment block, surrounded by the kitchen and wait-staff of the endless array of restaurants located along Dundee Rd.
But, the sun was up, and for a late December morning, it wasn't awfully cold.
Two hours later, I slumped, finally, into my La-Z-Boy chair, and relieved my extraordinarily sore feet of their day's burden.
And that is when the distinction between weekdays and weekends ceased any longer to have any more meaning. This was the case, at first, because I did, in fact do as I'd determined in those first minutes of my long walk. I hid my situation from relatives and friends (such as I had left); I sat in front of computer and T.V. and had my supplies delivered. And so, as you may imagine, there was little need of, or use in, demarcating the days in any special way.
And even after I'd made a hash of my modest plan of self-annihilation, there followed weeks in hospital, then several weeks recuperating at a sister's home, and then, finally, my entree into retail work. And of course, for most of us hourly retail drudges, there IS no weekend; only two even busier days of aggravation and disappointment.
And that's where I am today. Yes, there have been a few twists and turns since I started work at Walgreens during the summer of '07. But here it is, February of 2012, and I am still a retail wage slave, and still have no need to set apart two of the week's days for rest and relaxation. Nor have I the privilege of doing so. I live alone and lonely. I still have no car, have no friends to speak of, and insufficient disposable income. I simply go to work, and come home (no, my current digs still don't really feel like "home" as I once understood that word, but they are a definite step up from the 2006 address, and I can call this home without choking).
And that, my friends (oh, who am I kidding? No one but me will ever read this, and even I will never read it once it's published), that is why I no longer regard the "weekend" as a time special and separate from the rest of the days.

Where Am I?

As cathartic as I find writing to be, I am unable to do it without coming up against the same tireless nemesis that  dogs every other effort I limply embark upon. From outside myself I'm sure that the consequence of this confrontation presents itself as laziness. But within myself, it feels like paralysis.
I cannot sufficiently explain myself to others. I cannot even understand it myself.
The best, and most concise explication I've devised till now is simply that I seem to have been born without ambition of any kind.
Oh, there are plenty of dreams. An ex-wife once said, conspicuously within earshot, at a party, "that's what I get for falling for a dreamer". Or, words to that effect, anyway.
And from time to time I conceive plans; schemes that I think will surely - finally - be my deliverance from mediocrity.
But here I sit, in my stasis, devastated, but unmoved, by humiliation.
Others may be horrified by the realization of their relative insignificance within the vastness of the Universe. But from this knowledge I take comfort.
In the past, my several failed attempts at self-annihilation have caused inexpressible pain, and, over the long term, imposed material costs upon those few who care. The upshot is that I have emerged worse off than before. Guilt is a sharp blade.
So, pondering the expansive immensity of both time and space, I am sedated, calmed, comforted. Whereas a man or woman of impressive accomplishments might be brought to melancholy by the idea of the paucity of their contributions, for me the epiphany is something of a great leveler. After all, I know that the day will come when not only I, but everyone I know, will be forgotten. And when even Shakespeare and Jefferson will be of no more significance to anyone alive than I will be.
I am no less capable of rationalization than anyone else of my species, you see.