When The Sunday Blues Hit

It takes me by surprise every time.

VOL. 3 ... No. 107. June 18, 2025.

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Howdy Humpsters,

Is there one day of the week that is emotionally or physically harder for you? Have you noticed a pattern?

Is it Wednesday — Hump Day? I hope not!

Some people hate Mondays. Others find Saturdays to be too busy or too lonely. Cady is not overly fond of bath days.

Cady will do anything for a dried sweet potato treat. All eyes on the treat!

I’m asking about this “day-specific” depression because I get a bad case of the blues on Sundays, and I’m wondering if any of you have the same problem? It happens every Sunday. You’d think I’d be ready for it, but the sinking feeling in my gut, the free-floating anxiety, and the nameless, shadowy sense of sorrow take me by surprise and knock me flat. I have to make an effort to get outside and connect with others, or I’ll be depressed all day.

It makes no logical sense, but I have long suspected it has something to do with my grandmother. Her name was Adaline Medora, and her eight siblings called her Addie Medora or just Add. My cousins called her Aunt Addie.

Granny was a wonder. Not just to me, but to everyone who knew her. She was as country as fresh corn and garden tomatoes, courteous, friendly, tender-hearted, resourceful, a fabulous cook, indignant if insulted, and often hilarious. She could be fierce if her loved ones were threatened, and she could hold a grudge for a lifetime if folks didn’t “do right” by us. For my sisters and me, she was the foundation of our lives. She didn’t approve of everything we did, but she always approved of us.

While my mother brought the excitement and what little glamour we had, Granny was the steady one who made sure we had plenty to eat and enough blankets when cold air penetrated the thin walls of our apartment.

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Granny wasn’t particularly religious — at least not in that soul-destroying way that builds up like lead in the arteries of your heart and passes judgement on every human imperfection. She didn’t go to church except for weddings and funerals, but she made sure we could attend Sunday school if we wanted to go. With her small social security check, she bought our Sunday clothes — Easter dresses with matching hats and patent leather shoes, gold crosses, Christmas sweaters. She gave us illustrated children’s bibles. She fully expected that we would hear “the call” to be baptised, but she didn’t push.

Her connection to Jesus was a personal one. She conjured him on the piano in the afternoons singing, “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” “Sweet Hour of Prayer,” and “I’ll Fly Away.” She had high standards for behavior, but she believed in a compassionate, forgiving God.

Some people have horrible memories of Sunday sermons and abusive pastors or priests. They live as if the devil is two steps behind them and breathing fire on their butts.

That wasn’t my experience.

So, why do I get sad on Sundays?

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I called a dear friend who knows me well last Sunday to vent about it.

“I can’t figure it out,” I said. “There’s no reason to be sad on Sundays. I don’t dread Mondays. I can’t remember any specific traumas that happened on Sundays. I miss my family sometimes, but not just on Sundays. What’s the Sunday connection?”

The next day the answer hit me . . .

I was twelve when Granny died after a long, painful battle with breast cancer, and I’ve spent much of my adult life undoing the damage from the aftermath of her death. Our family transformed into something I didn’t recognize. I had no way of predicting behaviors in the adults who took her place. I lost my sense of self. I lost my place in the world.

When your foundation is destroyed, you live your life as if you’re tap dancing on quicksand. Smiling, trying to please everyone, and you’re always only one step ahead of the next sinkhole.

But it’s been 63 years, for heaven’s sake! I am now capable of understanding my childhood from an adult point of view. I’ve talked it out with therapists. I see that everyone was doing the best they could. There’s nothing to forgive. We are all human beings with shortcomings and frailties. Up until yesterday, I truly believed I had come to a place of peace with it, and that I no longer grieved Granny’s death.

Apparently, that’s not true. Maybe it can be now, but up until yesterday, my body still remembered what my mind had suppressed.

Granny died on October 7, 1962.

It was a Sunday.

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Until next time, my friends . . . get outside. Connect with nature and feel the warmth of the sun on your beautiful faces.

Janna

Quote Of The Week:

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me. ― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed