“Sunday Scaries” and the Art of Letting Tomorrow Be Tomorrow

It’s Sunday evening. The sun begins to dip, and with it, a subtle unease creeps in. If you’re like me, you know this feeling well — the “Sunday Scaries.” It’s that low hum of anticipatory anxiety as the weekend winds down and your mind churns with thoughts of the week ahead. Emails. Call shifts. Patient complexities. That project you haven’t finished. The unexpected. The unknown.

Seven months ago, I started a new job that brought with it a title I was proud of, a team I was eager to serve, and a whirlwind of inner panic I wasn’t prepared for. On paper, everything looked right. But internally, I was unraveling. I cried almost every day after work. Not because the job was unusually grueling — though, like any healthcare role, it came with its weight — but because I was holding onto fear like it was my job, too.

I second-guessed everything. I overanalyzed every interaction and every decision. I worried incessantly about what might go wrong, convinced I wouldn’t be able to handle it, and certain that when it did, it would somehow be my fault. I was overwhelmed, not by the role itself, but by the pressure I had created in my own mind. I had built a mental fortress of“what-ifs,” and I was trapped inside.

But then, something shifted. Not all at once, but slowly, steadily.

I began to learn the rhythm of the department. I started to identify the people I could lean on, ask questions to, and admit,“I’m not sure. Can you help me think through this?” without shame. I stopped demanding perfection of myself and instead started honoring progress. The work was still hard sometimes. Some days still are. There are long hours. Unexpected calls. Stressful situations that come with leading a team and showing up for patients. But I can do it. And more importantly — I am doing it.

And that brings me back to Sunday evenings.

These days, when my brain begins to wander into the world of Monday morning problems, I gently pause. I tell myself, That’s for tomorrow me to deal with. And you know what? Most of the time, Mondays are just fine. So are Tuesdays. And Wednesdays. Sometimes, they’re even wonderful. Sometimes, they’re frustrating. Sometimes, they’re exhausting. But none of them require my worry ahead of time.

I used to steal joy from myself by trying to pre-live the week in my mind. Now, I try to stay here — in the present. I’velearned that anxiety feeds on imagined catastrophe. But peace? Peace lives in trust — in ourselves, in our process, in the truth that we don’t have to have it all figured out beforehand.

So now, I let Sunday evenings be precisely what they are: an invitation to rest. To soften. To remember that I’ve survived every work week before this one — and I’ll do it again.

If you’re walking through your own season of “Sunday Scaries,” know this: it doesn’t mean you’re incapable. It doesn’tmean you chose the wrong path. It means you care — maybe too much sometimes — and you’re learning. Be patient with your own unfolding. Eventually, the fog lifts, and in its place is the calm clarity that you can, in fact, handle what comes.

And when in doubt, give it to tomorrow-you. They’re stronger than you think.