I Don't Like Leap Mondays

I'm depressed about Leap Day this year.  Not just because it's an extra day in winter, and not just because it's on a Monday this year, but because of the frequency of February 29 occurring on a Monday.

Excepting corrections at three out of every four ends of centuries, when there is no leap year and the rhythm of the calendar gets reset (I covered this in 2012; go here for the explanation), February 29 falls on the same day of the week only once every 28 years.  The day last fell on a Monday in 1988.  And here's why Leap Monday depresses me.  See, the year 1988 was the year I graduated from college.  When I got out of college,  I set out to make my mark on the world, and I came up rather short.  I had the ambition of going to graduate school, pursuing a career, moving out of my mother's house, eventually starting a family - you know, all the stuff that you're expected to do when you go out into the real world.  

But it didn't quite work out like that.  Despite my best efforts, I discovered that graduate school is a joke, I am still underemployed, my love life is non-existent, and I still live at home.  All the different career paths I considered, the woman I hoped would one day sweep me off my feet, the different places I imagined putting roots down . . . none of that mattered, as I only ended up in the same place I started out in.

And I ended up spending all the time it took for Leap Day to fall on a Monday again - twenty-eight years - getting nowhere fast. 

The fact that I have to deal with an extra winter's day and an extra Monday in the dreariest month of the year is only part of my frustration.  :-(