I miss Sundays. I miss the lazy close to the weekend the day used to be for me.

Ever since I came to college, Sundays have turned into a day of last-minute cramming or hurriedly driving back to campus to make it to the 1 p.m. State News staff meeting.

Before college, especially in the summer, Sundays were truly a day of rest and not a day to make up for not doing anything the rest of the weekend. It was my day, with no obligations and no sense of time.

Sure, there were Saturdays to be lazy, but Saturdays have a sense of obligation attached to them. With the work week behind and two days of freedom ahead, Saturdays are days to let it all go and do what you’ve been wanting to do all week.

Saturdays are days to run errands and get things done. Days when you go out to dinner and the movies. They are active days.

But Sunday, that’s a day all its own. With all the errands and outings out of the way, there is nothing left to do on Sunday but revel in lazy bliss.

Winter and summer Sundays were different, but revolved around the same principle – doing practically nothing.

If I managed to get out of going to church, I would usually wake up at around 10 a.m., when my mother got home and either began making breakfast or made enough noise to arouse my consciousness. I would roll out of bed and spend most of the day in my pajamas.

If church was inevitable, my official Sunday began after mass, when I came home and shed my good clothes in favor of my favorite jeans and the most comfy sweatshirt I owned. Slippers were the required footwear; nothing else would do.

Next, a casual breakfast of mom’s homemade goodies or a doughnut or bagel picked up on the way home from church. But the most important thing came next.

After I had eaten my fill, I would pour myself a hot cup of coffee (most likely my second) and raid the Sunday newspaper. I would pick out my favorite sections, pile them in the order I would read them and pick the perfect reading spot.

In the summer, that meant sitting on the porch of our cottage, enjoying the breeze from the lake in the morning sunlight. In the winter, it meant curling up on the couch in the glow of the television my father inevitably had tuned to some “Star Trek” rerun.

Despite the conditions, the rest of the day remained mostly the same – read the paper and do little else.

I miss the comfortable clothes, the lack of obligation and the couch at home, but most of all I miss the newspaper. There are few pleasures more enjoyable to me than feeling the newsprint between my fingers and taking them away ink-stained.

There’s just something about the feeling I get from reading the Sunday newspaper that just can’t be replaced. Sure, I could go to a newspaper box and buy one or even look online. But it’s not the same.

I want to know my Sunday newspaper came from my front porch or that semi-scuzzy party store between church and our cottage. I need to feel the weight of 10 sections of newspaper on my lap as I flip through to find my favorites. I need a good couch to curl up on.

And I don’t have that here. Sundays are now the day to finish all the assignments, papers and readings I was too burnt out or busy having fun to do on Friday or Saturday. And now my Sundays are consumed with work as well.

Even when I go home for the weekend, my Sunday ritual is interrupted, if not eliminated completely. My newspaper reading is usually limited to the hour drive from Battle Creek to East Lansing while I cram a doughnut in my mouth.

And while I regret the loss of my Sundays, this predicament has its bright side. While my Sundays during the academic year are not the relaxing havens they used to be, my now busy Sundays make me appreciate the peaceful Sundays I occasionally get.

I look forward to long weekends and breaks more, knowing I’ll have my Sundays back, and I make more of an effort to get things done early in the weekend so I can attempt to recreate a new Sunday routine here.

So maybe I don’t have my comfy couch and my newspaper, but I do have a golden opportunity. Next year I will finally escape the dorm and move into an apartment of my own. Hopefully there will be room in my budget to get a Sunday paper delivered.

Then maybe I can roll out of bed on a Sunday morning, pour myself a cup of coffee and open my door to a newspaper just waiting for me to tear it apart. And I’ll curl up on my very own comfy couch and waste the day away.

Michonne Omo, State News opinion writer, hasn’t enjoyed a Sunday since she started at The State News last fall. She can be reached at omomicho@msu.edu.