Blue Monday

It’s the first Monday of the new year, and I started it out feeling pretty good. I actually got out of bed when my alarm went off (this is not something that happens all that often….normally I hit Snooze at least twice and then laze about snuggling my kitties when I really ought to be getting up and ready for work), my hair cooperated in the getting-ready process a lot more than it usually does, and I was out the door with enough time to stop at Starbucks for a latte. All was reasonably well with the world as I arrived at work, set my coffee and bag on my desk, and started getting situated after being away all weekend. I was arranging things when, BAM!, my elbow hit my coffee cup and dumped my latte all over my desktop calendar, several papers, and my blanket. I was pretty irritated with myself as I mopped up the mess and sent a message requesting a replacement calendar.
Turns out, I shouldn’t blame myself, it’s the universe’s fault. What I have learned since this morning is that today is Blue Monday, which is a splashy way of saying it’s the most depressing day of the year. Has anyone else heard of this? Because it was completely not on my radar. Apparently Blue Monday is the day that the most divorces of the year get filed, and tweets are five times more likely to be negative. I guess on some level it makes sense: the holidays are over, people are going back to work, the credit card bills are starting to come in after a December of increased spending, families are sick of each other after all that “together” time.
I did some research and found that Blue Monday actually falls somewhere in the middle of January, not the first full week of the month. The date gets calculated by taking into account a bunch of different factors, like time lapsed since Christmas and average weather conditions. This isn’t really enough to convince me that Blue Monday truly exists. After all, in spite of the fact that I spilled my coffee today, my hair looks great and the sun is shining! It’s a beautiful day! Admittedly, spilling a four dollar drink didn’t please me, but it’s certainly not the worst thing that could happen.
I reject this Blue Monday theory. I’m not going to have a bad day just because someone decided that the weather and my potential credit card bills have dictated that I could. To me, this is a lot like Friday the 13th, which has been deemed a bad luck day but usually turns out fine for me (I mean, honestly, what’s to hate about Fridays?). I went back to Starbucks on my lunch and got myself a new latte, which I drank without incident.
It would be easy to go into a day that already has a label for being depressing and have a bad attitude, because why be positive when the day is going to suck anyways? But it’s just as easy to have a good outlook and decide that, Blue Monday or no, today is kicking off a great week!