Did you have a Blue Monday, too?

I almost didn’t open the email. When I got to it late in the day, I learned that last Monday, the third Monday of January, was Blue Monday.  According to Wikipedia the declared blue day was determined by an algorithm developed fifteen years ago. The equation takes into consideration weather conditions in the Northern Hemisphere.  (It is just a coincidence that Blue Monday lands on the MLK holiday).

Let’s be honest with one another.  Did you feel blue on Monday, January 20th?

I sure did.  And, if I’m really candid, a case of mini blues started poking into my positivity well before Blue Monday or MLK Day. Like teen acne, negative thoughts peppered me every day of the last ten. Hitting in waves, these down beats did not send me to bed, but they made me serious. Contemplative. My lips refused to curl, even into the fakest of smiles.

This morning, I quizzed the dreary, middle-aged woman who glared at me in the make-up mirror: Why are you blue?

Over a warm cup of green tea, I dared myself again: Name the reason! C’mon spit it out. The answer lapped about with the tea bag, threatened to submerge.  I lifted the battered tea bag and gave it the evil eye. Do you know what spit back at me? Pity.  Like a child who didn’t get the gift they wanted on Christmas morning, I felt sorry for myself.  With all the wonderful things going on in my life, with all the blessings I acknowledge and praise, self-pity was making me blue.

Before I share the pity part, let me offer this: I know.  I know that self-pity is well, selfish; and yes, I know this too: professed self-pity in adults is rather pathetic and it makes readers sad.  Pity is a big turn off. Please know, dear reader, that I worked myself out of it. I have a fresh perspective. Keep reading.

Here comes the pity part.

I am in a women’s group and we often share prayer requests.  One of the members asked that we pray for her friend, a woman not in our group who had recently lost her mother.  The friend’s mother had lived into her nineties.  The woman was desperately sad and missed her mom.  Of course.  Death is a huge loss.  They were close this mother and daughter.  The loss enveloped my friend’s friend and was taking her to a bad place. Yes, prayers for her.

As I considered this bereaved woman, I visualized the mother-daughter pair. I imagined their relationship.  They probably spoke more than once a day.  On Sundays, I supposed, they gathered to share a meal which led to lingering fellowship.  Perhaps, too, this pair embarked on mother-daughter outings.  Like trips to the nail salon. Lunch. Shoe shopping that folded into the hunt for a matching handbag.  They probably read the same books, loved the same authors which immersed them in the same book club.  The same prayer group.  The same church.  Perhaps their closeness led them to the same suburb. Maybe they lived on the same street.

My mind spun instead of praying. Perhaps, they vacationed together.  The husband of my friend’s friend probably revered his mother-in-law, encouraged the mother-daughter bond, and when he tried to tap into it, he was welcomed not scorned.  Maybe he even sent them off once a year for a spa weekend.

The truth is I don’t know the specifics of the relationship this friend’s friend had with her mother. I don’t have to know. My mind filled in the blanks for me, so I’m not revealing cherished confidences. I assumed. I speculated.  Some area of my subconscious wanted to execute these scenarios, color them in.

Why? Why did my brain do this?

Probably because I did not have any of those experiences with either of my mothers.  (Yes, that is not a typo. Plural. Mothers. Two real ones.) My adoptive mom was perpetually preoccupied with the very large immediate family in which I was raised.  There were always crises. Big ones, like infidelity and divorce, child-and-husband abandonment, health issues, self-harm, depression, alcoholism and suicide. When there are fires to put out, the building of close bonds through shared experiences gets delayed.  Or, it never happens.

My other mother, the one that left my twin sister and me with Catholic Charities when we were days old, well she and I have been building some shared experiences over the last eight years.  You have to start somewhere. Why can’t mother-daughter bonding commence when one turns 52 years old? I have never been to a spa with my birth mom, nor have I taken her to get her nails done. She has not invited me to the annual family reunion where I might meet first cousins, aunts and uncles. She’s not ready yet. Maybe that day will happen. Being an unwed mother who kept a secret for fifty years is not an easy role to reverse. Ah, patience.

I was not fortunate enough to have the shared experiences with either of my mothers that I imagine my friend’s friend enjoyed.  I am sorry for that woman’s loss. Even more, I regret deeply what I did not have. There I said it.  I shared the reason for the blues that preceded Blue Monday.In kid’s terms, I feel gipped, like someone forgot to give me all my presents.  Self-pity proud and strong.

Here’s the praise and blessings section.

I have taken my three daughters to spas, where with fresh mani-pedis we hot air ballooned over an Arizona desert.  Giggling, all four of us had our palms read in the gypsy-encrusted square in NOLA.  My credit card has taken my daughters and me shoe shopping and purse hunting. I cook for my children, their spouses and their friends, or I take them to a hot new restaurant.  The closeness I do not feel with my mothers, I foster with my children.  I think they will miss me, feel a loss, when I cannot be present in their lives.  Just like my friend’s friend feels for her ninety-year-old mother.

Realizing all this, self-pity is heading down the road.  Gone too are the blues that came unbidden with the prayer request. And, now that I know about Blue Monday, I will safeguard against it next year (maybe schedule a spa trip with my kids).

I leave you with these thoughts:

I think everyone does their best, most of us anyhow, at this mothering thing.  I think we juggle our wants and needs, weighing them against what we have, didn’t/don’t have.  We lament. That is healthy, I guess.  From where I sit, it’s Wednesday, a full week and two days have transpired since Blue Monday.  That’s good.   I am okay. I hope you are okay.  The point is its okay to feel sad. Whatever brings you out of that mood is what you need to hold onto.  Hold it dear.  Then grab someone’s hand and pray with them, so that whatever loss that has them in its clutches, loosens.

All men and women are born, live, suffer and die;

what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams,

whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things,

and what we do to make them come about.

We do not choose to be born.

We do not choose our parents.

We do not choose our historical epoch,

the country of our birth,

or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing.

We do not, most of us, choose to die;

nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death.

But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.

– Joseph Epstein

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