This past Monday (the 3rd Monday of January) has been labelled “Blue Monday.” Apparently, it is the most depressing day of the year. If you can believe it, there is an actual formal for calculating this day that includes weather conditions, our debts (Christmas bills are arriving), failed New Year’s resolutions, and low motivation. It amazes me that people take the time and effort to develop a formula and create a need to call this day the most depressing!
Certainly, in our grief, the new year is not necessarily a time of joy and excitement. A friend of mine posted: “Don’t wish me a happy new year. I am entering the first year that my loved one won’t be living in”. Very profound words that made me stop and reflect.
The new year can be a depressing, scary, foreign, and anxiety-filled time. I know for me I questioned: how was I going to make it through this year without Keith by my side? I wondered what this year would hold for us.
2015 I am personally hoping will be a year of self-reflection and growth. So, it seemed ironically poetic that, when I opened up my jewelry box today to pick earrings, I found a pin I purchased a few years after Keith died. The pin was designed by Jane Seymore (the actress who played Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman –for those who remember!) Dr. Quinn was one of Keith’s favorite shows… don’t ask! Maybe that was why I was drawn so deeply to purchase it.
The pin is a symbolic open heart. To me, it represents my grief. I needed to keep an open heart to the possibilities of what grief was going to teach me. Somehow, I needed to be present to what was before me. I didn’t know what life was going to be like, but I figured if I kept my heart open then, those possibilities could at least be able to enter.
Is it a coincidence that I found my open heart the day after Blue Monday? I’ll let you decide, but I know what I think!