I get the Sunday Blues; not every week, but periodically and without much warning. I call them “the Goobies”, which is a long story dating back to middle school when I would do “Word Power” in Readers Digest with my dad. Basically, I’ve always thought the word lugubrious was a funny word. Ironically, it means gloomy, sad or sorrowful. Many years later, I thought it was only appropriate to name my Sunday Blues “the Goobies”. Somehow it adds a little levity to an otherwise twisty, achy, yucky gray cloud that hangs over my head occasionally on Sundays.
We need a new word when the old words are insufficient to express a shared understanding. And the new word is a placeholder for a story.
If we share the same story about a word, about its place, its possibility and its promise–then we know what it stands for.
New words give us new ways to understand the world, because new words come with stories attached.
-Seth Godin
I’ve always had a hard time identifying the root cause of this feeling, although not for lack of trying. I analyze and scrutinize the onset of that heavy feeling that drapes itself over me like a wet blanket. Was it because I didn’t accomplish everything I had wanted this weekend? I think? Am I unhappy with something about my life? I wonder. Am I nervous about the week ahead? I ponder? This self-interrogation can go on and on, only making the feeling more pricky and real. Don’t get me wrong. I am not catatonic, sitting in bed with my covers over my head when I have a case of The Goobies. It’s more subtle and elusive and allows me to go through my day…but just a bit heavier than I’d like.
I’ve tried exercising (which helps a bit). I’ve organized more family activities (which also helps). I’ve written out a looooooong to-do list and spent the day checking every last thing off the list (definitely exhausts me to the point of not thinking about it!). But none of these things was the magic elixir that magically made The Goobies disappear. It wasn’t until I started writing that I realized what the problem was. At first, it was an accident. I had this childhood memory that was stuck in my head and I finally gave it breath on paper. It was just some handwritten notes in a journal, but as I took this quiet moment to release something inside of me, I realized I was also releasing the power The Goobies had over me. It was one of the biggest “AHA moments” I’ve experienced in life.
Now, I wish I could say I cured myself and from that moment forward I wrote every time I started to feel The Goobies creeping up on me, but I can’t. The correlation was strong but I didn’t grant myself permission to take these quiet moments, always convincing myself there were other things I needed to do. I was blocking my own healing.
Today is Sunday, and I am writing. I now understand the need, for myself, my health and my happiness, to write. It doesn’t matter what, but it does matter that words are put down on paper. For me, that is my path to a contented soul. Maybe it is for you as well.
Yours till butter flies,
Jo