I do not know if this is an emotion universally felt, but I have discovered that I am not alone in feeling what I have come to think of as “Sunday night triste,” a feeling of the blues that comes upon me dependably each Sunday, roughly at dusk. What does this tinge of sadness signify? Expectations disappointed? A yearning for a time now gone and not ever to be recaptured? Regret for the winding down of another week, during the course of which one achieved (yet again!) less than one had hoped? Sorrowful anticipation of still another week ahead? Or is it — simply and more persuasively — sadness at the passing of Sunday itself, one of life’s minor pleasures that is now once again no less than a full six days off?
— Joseph Epstein, “Observing the Sabbath,” Familiar Territory: Observations on American Life
Alone with our thoughts on a day of rest, it sometimes feels as if we’ve paused amid the eternal Heraclitean flow, watching the swirls and eddies rush past without acknowledging us, knowing it’s futile and foolish, but still halfheartedly wishing we could stand athwart the flux and plead, “stop.” Alternatively, perhaps it’s a variation of what John Koenig named “kenopsia.“