When you think of the term ‘lost weekend’, you probably think of the party that didn’t go the way you wanted it to go.

The guy who didn’t ask you for a second date.

The date that didn’t work out.

The man you matched with on Tinder that didn’t text you back.

To me, my lost weekends are weekends when I don’t have my kid.

I don’t know what to do with myself, and that’s really bizarre. I’m a super-active person who can always find things to do. I’ve got tons of friends.

But when I don’t have my kid on the weekends, I have no idea what to do with myself.

I feel like I’ve done it already, so many times before. I feel like I’ve gone to that store, had lunch with that friend. I’ve been to the gym an extra time or taken that yoga class.

The only weekends that I’m okay when I’m not with my kid are the weekends when I’m traveling. I’m seeing my brother in Miami. Or maybe I’m doing a boot camp or a seminar or whatever it might be. I feel at that point, I’ve got a sense of purpose. Having that sense of purpose makes me feel good.

It’s strange, without my kid or work, sometimes I wake up in the morning, and I feel lost. I’ve already done all these things before and I feel like there’s no sense of purpose.

Now granted, I know once the kids get older you become their cab driver on the weekends. Taking them to their friends’ houses, or to parties, or sports events. But right now, it feels like there’s absolutely no purpose when I’m not with my kid on the weekend.

Do any of you who have been divorced or separated know what I’m feeling? What do you do to make your weekends without your kids feel more alive?

It’s a really strange feeling. I’m somebody who always loves to do things, but now I don’t even know what to do with myself. Now, I do fill my days up, and I might catch a movie late in the day or whatever it might be. But it takes me a while to get into the day.

I used to be able to dive into my days immediately, and not think or worry or wonder why I’m not feeling inspired. I don’t like to work on weekends because I think weekends are made to relax, to do things and be around the people you love.

Life is interesting. I’ve always been an independent person who found so many things to do. I always had so many friends. Over the last year, I feel like my weekends without my little girl are lost. That’s such a strange feeling for me.

We never really did big things with family when we were growing up. Our father always found us a nuisance on the weekends, because it took away from his golf time. Took away from his time with his friends, you know, drinking on a Friday or Saturday night.

So I never had a family that spent time doing things together.

It’s powerful. Our upbringing, our loop, our cassette tape or eight track that plays in our brain. Then life changes and you realize wow, having a family is actually a beautiful thing.

It’s amazing what adulthood is. Adulthood is getting rid of the fucked up programming that we’ve had since we were born.

Opportunities present themselves. Situations present themselves. We look at why we want something and try to rationalize it based on our feelings. But our feelings are what we’ve been programmed to feel since we were born.

I’ve been doing a lot of work on that with many of you. A lot of you have issues when it comes to meeting the opposite sex or having toxic relationships. A lot of it is a generational loop that you’ve been playing from your grandmother to your mother to your father. Things that you’ve learned as a kid you’re just playing out.

Once you get deeply in touch with this, you realize that you are starting to gain control of your life. Look deeper into your feelings. It’s what I do when I realize that I’m not so thrilled anymore on my weekends. I realize it’s important, and I realize how much I’ve grown. How much I’ve changed. And how family is such a beautiful thing. I get it.

I never got it because I never had it. So I never could see it. No matter how much somebody would paint the picture for me about how beautiful family can be. You have to go through it on your own. You have to realize the lessons on your own. Nobody can tell you.

No one can convince you of their dreams unless you see it on your own. Actually understand why you are blocked. Understand why you were unable to fulfill the vision of a life that some other person painted. So that’s it. Wanted to share. It was one of those weekends.