The Sunday blues are very real. As if the 5:2 weekday to weekend ratio wasn’t insulting enough, a large proportion of Sunday is spent in this blue state. Not sky fluffy-cloud blue, but a darker blue like the colour of the Microsoft Teams icon on a Monday morning.
In an attempt to not succumb to this blueness, I have thought about how you can scare the blues far away, at least until 1am when you are wide awake imagining the passive aggressive emails you may or may not receive at 8.59am or mentally planning your response to ‘Get up to anything wild this weekend?’ Another walk perhaps? Ha-ha!’. By that point, it is technically Monday after all.
You can read a book. Simple, yet effective and completely underrated, a book is everything that the Sunday blues despise. It is screen-free time and true escapism into a world that (hopefully) is not enduring a Sunday evening. Our minds are busily occupied with all manner of doubts and concerns and a year in lockdown has done little to make this less true, so perhaps a Tolstoy novel is not quite what your Sunday needs right now.
But written words on paper, be it on a free magazine or a book read aloud to your children, even a joke book, allow our brains to become fully absorbed in the laughs or tears that black and white text can magically evoke; and the benefits are priceless.
Bath time. A controversial one, because apparently some people do not like the idea of ‘lying in your own filth’ (an insult to all bath lovers, myself included) but a bath is the epitome of Sunday. It is warm and comforting, like a tailor-made hug with candles and scented oils adding some theatre to the event. A bath in the dark is also delightful – how can you see the Sunday blues if you can’t even see the soap bar?
An evening walk is therapeutic and such therapy has only been amplified in lockdown. Happy news! The clocks have gone forward so there are even more daylight hours for peaceful strolling. Look closely and the house with the green door you pass almost every day might have a new flower on its rose bush. The next few weeks are precious as every passing tree or shrub is adorned with baby leaves and buds waiting to bloom, reminding us there is lots to look forward to and perhaps that looking ahead does not have to be daunting.
I believe the Sunday blues arise from the fear of the unknown. Where weekdays are overpowered with structure and time constraints, the weekend is a bubble where the rigidity of routine completely melts away so of course we are sad when the bubble starts to pop. The weekends are where we grow within ourselves – we have time to dedicate to both the hobbies and people we are passionate about and anything built on passion is precious and most important.
If we find time to rest and relax on a Sunday evening, perhaps we can recharge to use the same feelings of passion towards working hard and feeling motivated, for ourselves and for our loved ones so that we enjoy the next weekend even more.
While writing this piece I have had three cups of tea, sprayed the room with lavender sleep spray (it is 6.17pm) and played Ella Fitzgerald on my record player. I have filled both my evening and my mind with the things that give me the most peace and comfort – now the working week ahead does not look too scary after all.
Original poem and collage artwork by me.
Lucy O'Farrelly 