When Monday Feels Like Drowning

7:15 AM. Monday. I’m standing at the bus stop two blocks from my apartment in Brooklyn, and the third bus has just blown past without stopping. The woman behind me mutters “every damn Monday” under her breath and I almost laughed. Almost. Instead I just stared at the street like it owed me an explanation.

This is the thing about monday drowning nobody warns you about. Sunday night you tell yourself it will be different this week. You’ll go to bed on time. You’ll set out your clothes. You’ll be the kind of person who has it together when Monday hits. And then Monday hits.

Let me back up.

Saturday I felt fine. Saturday I woke up at 11, made pancakes, scrolled TikTok for two hours, felt like a functioning human. Sunday I had brunch with my friend Jess. We talked about her new job. We laughed about nothing. I told her I was finally getting used to the rhythm of things. I meant it too, in that moment.

Then Sunday night rolled around like a freight train.

I laid out my outfit at 9 PM. Set three alarms — 6:30, 6:35, 6:40, because I know myself. Brushed my teeth. Drank water like a good girl. Got into bed at 10:15 thinking, okay, I’m doing this right. I’m going to crush Monday.

I laid there until 1 AM.

Not in a fun way. Not in a “watching one more episode” way. Just staring at the ceiling, watching the streetlight flicker through my curtain, thinking about a Slack DM I shouldn’t have read at 11 PM. Something about a deadline. My stomach was already tight at 11:30.

I closed my eyes maybe around 1:30. Got maybe four hours of broken sleep. Woke up at 6:30 with the first alarm and immediately wanted to disappear back into the pillow.

But I didn’t.

That’s the part that gets me. I’m not lazy. I want to be there. I want to be the coworker who shows up smiling, who has her shit together, who remembers to reply to emails by Tuesday. But every Monday I wake up feeling like I’m already late, even when I’m not. Even when I have 45 minutes. Even when my first meeting isn’t until 10.

The third bus finally came. I squeezed on with my headphones in — AirPods Pro 2, noise canceling on, volume halfway up, eyes fixed on the floor like a total NPC. The woman next to me was eating a bacon egg and cheese and the smell almost made me cry. I hadn’t eaten.

I don’t know why I didn’t eat.

I had yogurt in the fridge. I had bread. I had those little cereal bars I bought last week from Trader Joe’s, the chocolate chip ones, $3.99 a box. But when I opened the fridge at 6:45, I just stood there staring at it, and then I closed it, and grabbed my bag and left. Like I was being chased.

Has that happened to you? Where your body just decides things before your brain catches up?

The bus got me to the subway. I swiped in. Stood on the platform in the exact spot where I always stand, second car from the back. A man was coughing somewhere near me. I had no idea if it was COVID or just a New York cough. I moved anyway. I felt my shoulders go up near my ears.

Then the train came and I had to squeeze in.

This is when the monday drowning actually started.

I’m not being dramatic. I know that sounds dramatic. But I swear, the second the doors closed and the train lurched forward and I was pressed between a guy reading the Wall Street Journal and a teenager with a backpack that smelled like bubble gum, my chest got tight in a way I can’t really describe.

I tried to breathe. I tried counting in my head. I looked at my phone. The email I had been avoiding since Sunday night was sitting at the top of my inbox, the red dot, the unread badge, just looking at me.

I opened Slack on the train.

Why? Why did I do that?

My manager had replied to a thread I’d started Thursday. The message was two lines long. It said “Sounds good but can we revisit the timeline? Let’s chat tomorrow.” That’s it. Two lines. But my heart rate went up like I’d just seen a car accident.

By the time I got off at my stop, my palms were wet inside my coat pockets.

Walked the four blocks to the office. Smiled at the security guard — Manny, he’s always there at 8:30. Said good morning to two people in the elevator whose names I sometimes forget. Sat down at my desk at 8:47. Logged in. And just sat there.

Just sat there.

Staring at the wallpaper on my second monitor — a photo of me and Jess from a beach trip last summer, both sunburnt, both laughing, both apparently a different person. Where did that girl go?

I don’t know.

I opened my notebook. I had a to-do list from Friday. Seven items. I crossed off two things I’d technically done over the weekend. That left five. I stared at the list. I had forty-five minutes until stand-up. I picked up my phone and scrolled Instagram for fifteen of those minutes. Then I put the phone down. Then I picked it up again.

Then it was 9:50 and I had nothing done and stand-up was about to start.

I’ve been doing this job for two years. I’m good at this job. I know I’m good at this job. My manager literally told me in March that I was being considered for a senior role. So why, every single Monday, does it feel like I’m faking it? Like I’m holding my breath underwater and pretending I know how to swim?

Stand-up was fine. I gave my update. Nobody asked anything weird. I said “syncing with Legal on the contract draft today” and people nodded and moved on.

But the second I unmuted, my chest got tight again.

I went to the bathroom after stand-up. I locked a stall. Sat on the toilet with my coat still on. I don’t know why. I just sat there for like four minutes. Breathing. Feeling the vinyl seat cold through my tights. Looking at my own shoes — the black loafers I bought on sale at Uniqlo in March, $39.90, marked down from $59.90. They were on clearance. I didn’t really want them. But I’d bought them because they made me feel like a person who has loafers.

Was that the point where I broke?

I don’t know. Maybe not. Maybe I broke earlier. Maybe I broke Sunday night at 11 PM when I read that email and didn’t reply.

What I know is I went back to my desk, opened my laptop, and worked for ninety minutes straight. I answered the contract questions. I updated the project tracker. I unblocked Jess who’s been waiting on me for input since last week (sorry Jess). I drank two glasses of water because I knew I should. I didn’t eat anything.

Lunchtime came. I usually eat with a coworker named Priya. Today I told her I had a call. I didn’t have a call. I sat in the break room by myself with a tupperware of pasta from Saturday. I heated it up. I ate maybe half. I scrolled Twitter. Then Reddit. Then I went back to my desk.

The afternoon was the same blur.

Meetings. Slacks. An email from my mom at 2:15 that I read twice and didn’t reply to.

She wrote: “Hi honey how’s your week going? Dad and I are thinking of you.”

Dad and I are thinking of you.

I almost cried at my desk at 2:17 PM on a Monday.

I didn’t. I held it. I think I held it because if I start crying at work I’m not sure I’ll stop. I read the email four more times. I typed “Hey mom, all good! Talk soon 💕” and didn’t send it. I closed Gmail. I went back to my work. I finished the doc. I sent it. I closed my laptop at 5:30 and walked to the elevator and pressed the button and felt nothing.

Wait, that’s a lie. I felt something. I felt exhausted and weirdly proud of myself for surviving the day. And I hated both feelings at the same time.

The train home was worse than the morning train.

Crushed again between bodies. Same noise canceling on. Same guy maybe, or a different guy, same Wall Street Journal rustling. I held the strap above my head and looked at everyone’s shoes. Mine were the loafers. My feet hurt.

I got home at 6:45.

Put my keys on the counter. Put my bag on the floor. Didn’t take off my shoes. Stood in the entryway for what felt like a long time. Then I took off my shoes. Then I took off my coat. Then I opened the fridge. The yogurt from this morning was still sitting there, unopened, mocking me.

I closed the fridge.

I called my mom.

She picked up on the second ring. “Hey baby, I just emailed you—”

“I saw,” I said.

“How’s your day?”

“Fine.”

“You sound tired.”

“Monday,” I said.

She laughed a little. The mom laugh. “Mondays are hard. Just push through.”

Push through.

I stood in my kitchen holding the phone and I wanted to scream. I wanted to say “Mom I’m drowning, do you hear me? I am drowning and I am at the bottom of a pool only I can see.” But I didn’t. I said “Yeah, you’re right, push through.”

We talked for nine minutes. She told me about my dad’s knee. She told me about her neighbor’s dog. I made sounds like I was listening. She said “love you” and I said “love you too” and we hung up.

I put the phone on the counter.

I stood in the kitchen for a minute.

Then I sat on the kitchen floor with my back against the cabinets and I cried.

Not in a beautiful movie way. Not in a soft-lit way. In a snotty, ugly, thirty-four-year-old woman sitting on a kitchen floor at 7 PM on a Monday in her work shirt way. I cried for maybe fifteen minutes. My mascara got on my sleeves. I left a wet spot on the hardwood that I’ll probably have to clean tomorrow.

I kept thinking about my mom’s words. “Just push through.”

And then I kept thinking about the email I’d never sent to Priya. And the contract I’d submitted. And the loafers. And the yogurt. And the fact that I’d slept four hours and eaten a half-container of pasta and not done anything for myself all day except wash my hands four times in the office bathroom.

I don’t have a point.

I don’t have an answer.

I don’t have a “5 tips to crush your Monday morning” or a “how I went from drowning to thriving” or whatever the productivity blogs want you to read. I am sitting on a kitchen floor on a Monday in July 2026, crying because my chest has been tight since 6:30 AM and I don’t know when it will stop being tight.

Mondays do this to me. They have done this to me since I was sixteen and had a job at Jamba Juice where a manager named Todd used to yell at us for being on our phones. They did it to me in college when I had 8 AMs. They did it to me at my last job when I had a 6 AM start. They do it to me now. They will probably do it to me next week. And the week after that. And the week after that.

I am a person who functions fine Tuesday through Sunday. I am a person who can deliver a presentation, who can run a meeting, who can call her grandma on a Wednesday afternoon, who can go to the gym, who can plan a trip to Lisbon in October, who can hold a friend who’s crying on her own kitchen floor too.

But Mondays?

Mondays I drown.

I texted Jess at 7:42 PM. I wrote “I’m okay” and then deleted it. I wrote “today was weird” and then deleted it. I wrote “I think I need to talk to someone” and stared at that for a long time before I hit send.

She replied in three minutes. “Want me to come over?”

I said “no it’s fine I’ll be okay tomorrow.”

She said “okay but I’m checking on you Wednesday.”

I said “okay.”

I’m still on the floor.

I just realized I never actually took a shower today. I wore my work shirt all the way home and I’ve been sitting in it for an hour. There’s a stain on the cuff from the pasta at lunch. There’s mascara on the collar.

This is what drowning looks like when it’s quiet.

It’s not water. It’s not loud. It’s a Monday morning bus you can’t get on. It’s a Slack notification that ruins your appetite. It’s a mom’s voicemail you can’t bring yourself to return. It’s yogurt in the fridge that stays in the fridge. It’s loafers you bought because you thought they would fix something.

I’m going to stand up now. I’m going to shower. I’m going to put rice in the cooker because I haven’t eaten real food. I’m going to set three alarms again for tomorrow because of course I am.

I don’t think Tuesday will save me. Tuesday is just Tuesday. But it isn’t Monday.

Right now my chest is still tight. My eyes are puffy. My feet hurt. I haven’t brushed my teeth.

But I’m going to stand up.

Eventually.

Tags: [“Monday Anxiety”, “Work Burnout”, “Brooklyn Commute”, “Mental Health”, “First Person Vent”