Why Sundays Always Make Me Feel Super Single

It's just another day on the Upper East Side. Sun's pouring in. Morning's finally come. I'm awake, but drowsy and confused, still slowly adjusting to the light. A tea kettle whistles faintly from the kitchen. Little annoying children laugh and play right outside my window. Don't they have school?

I look down and I can see a couple strolling hand-in-hand. Ah, of course. All of this can only mean one thing: It's the day of the week I dread most. It's Super Single Sunday.

I don't know what it is about Sundays. People call me crazy because I prefer Mondays over Sundays. Mondays win by a landslide in my book. Between working and working out, I'm usually so busy that I don't have time to stop and dwell on just how ... lonely I am.

Mondays make you feel like you have some sort of earthly purpose. Tuesday through Saturday is all good, too. They hardly leave any time to live in my head.

But though Sunday is the day of rest, it has this way of making me feel so. F*cking. Single.

I'm scared of Sundays. I live in fear of them, the way I live in fear of actually making an appointment with my dentist.

It's hard not to be reminded by just how single I am when I see young, hip couples brunching together and grocery shopping together and walking their equally young and hip babies in strollers, dog in tow and all. We might as well rename Sunday "Couples' Day."

Couples are the real-world "mean girls." They just have this way of making me revert back to the girl who was picked on incessantly in middle school.

Never one to make plans for Sundays (or ever, because I'm really not much of a planner), I wake up unsure of where the day is going to take me. I religiously follow a routine that ends up consuming the entire first half of my day, because without that routine, I'd be lost.

First on my list is heading to the gym. I can't start my day without a healthy dose of endorphins, whether it's a quick cardio session to work up a sweat, or a yoga class to calm the chaos swirling in my head.

Next, I'll hop into the shower. Here's where I really like to treat myself. I'll spent a good half hour exfoliating, all the while humming along to some Taylor Swift jam. Maybe I'll even throw in some bath salts. When I'm done, I'll lather up in some overpriced lotion, massage coconut oil into my scalp and pretty much call it a day.

On the rarest of Sundays -- the ones during which I find myself craving human interaction more than usual -- I'll meet a friend for brunch and a drink. It takes no more than an hour or two. We part ways, and I head back uptown to my little corner of the world.

Now cut to 3 pm: it's just me in my near-empty studio apartment. Don't get me wrong; I love my girl cave. I'm grateful for it. It's my escape from the hectic New York City streets.

But as cute, cozy and comfortable as my home is, it's also oppressive. Because once I've cleaned my kitchen and restocked my cupboards and done all the downward dogs my legs are capable of doing, I realize there's left nothing to strike out on the to-do list. I've done my chores. I've gone above and beyond. And now my hands are idle and my brain begins to wander, and I start to get restless.

There's no one to talk to. There's no one to hold.

I enter panic mode, so I start to self-sabotage. I'll eat my feelings, or get tempted to text the f*ckboys from my past. I can't just sit alone with my thoughts, stare at the wall and relax.

Only relaxing doesn't feel like relaxing. For me, "relaxing" means getting lost in my own thoughts, drowning in self-pity, forgetting to be grateful for the things I do have, and remembering everything I don't have: a guy in my life who loves me.

Because when I go to the grocery store, with my headphones blasting music in lieu of no food-shopping companion to hang with, I see couples pick out a week's worth of food together, and all of a sudden, I feel sad.

They're going to go home, and cook that food, and f*ck, and fall asleep in each other's laps, and talk about their plans for the future but not actually do any of those things. They're going to have an amazing, lazy Sunday, the kind you see in movies.

But I'm not. I'm going to go home to my 400-square-foot pad and think of all the things I can do that really don't need to be done at all so that I don't have to think about how single, unworthy and loser-ish I feel on this cursed day of the week.

See, as cathartic as Windexing my stovetop may feel, it really just seems like a distraction that keeps me from sitting alone with my feelings. It's as if I'm doing everything I possibly can to block out the love happening all around me. Even those damn headphones -- it's like I'm secretly hoping that blasting music will help blast away the couples.

I know what your remedy to my problem is: Get a cat, you pathetic moron! At least that's what my friends say. Sure, I guess I could get a cat. Animals are fuzzy and like to cuddle. But wouldn't this hypothetical cat just be a Band-Aid for something bigger than me -- that visceral, overwhelming, almost palpable loneliness?

And why does being alone on Sunday have to mean feeling down-and-out about being single, anyway? I treat myself the way I deserve to be treated. I'm living life right. Well, I'm doing the best I can.

But why am I so f*cking afraid of being with myself? Why should Sunday -- the day that most people look forward to because it gives them time to sleep in and catch up on their favorite Netflix shows, amongst other things -- have to be the day I wish I could fast-forward through?

Sunday is like a tyrant, but I'm trying not to let it bring out the worst version of me. I want Sunday to bring out the best version of me, so I'm trying to get better at being alone. Because Sunday shouldn't always have to be Super Single Sunday, and alone shouldn't always have to mean lonely.