Ten Intentions

Friday afternoon and you’re already running the playlist of finally-going-to-do things. The project in the garage. Get out and do something worth remembering. Maybe something genuinely stupid and risky. The weekend stretches ahead like permission.

By Saturday evening you’re home eating fries and watching garbage television and nothing has changed except your confidence level, which has dropped significantly.

The script never varies. You’re going to buy some piece of gear that’s supposed to fix your entire life—your setup, your work, your brain chemistry somehow—and when it arrives you realize it doesn’t do anything you couldn’t already do. Or you’re finally going to say what you actually mean to someone, which feels brave until you hit send and then six hours of self-hatred. Or get drunk with someone you usually avoid and let the night go where it goes. Use the snow before it’s gone. Pick up some weird hobby for no reason. None of it happens, or it happens halfway and stops.

The actual weekend is much quieter than the Friday version. Mostly time passing and you’re not sure what you’re supposed to do with it so you settle for small things—scrolling, watching, sleeping in. Maybe something breaks open. Usually not.

Sunday evening is always the same: you had two days and did basically nothing with them, and somehow that’s its own kind of wisdom. Monday comes and resets everything. Friday hits again and you genuinely mean it this time, which is the only bit of this that never gets old.