Yay May!
The first line of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is a celebration of the month of April, so verdant after the drought of March, a welcoming of spring and a time to venture on pilgrimage.
But he was in England, and I live in Florida, where I’m surrounded year round by greenery and flowers.
So I’m more of a T.S. Eliot girl. Elliot begins his poem The Wasteland with “April is the cruellest month.” He was being ironic.
I’m not being ironic when I agree that April is the cruelest month, my least favorite of the year.
I hate April.
Rather than the end of snow, as Chaucer might have experienced in his ode to April, in Florida, we experience dustings of pollen. Not only am I sneezing with red eyes, but I have to spend too much money on antihistamines and eye drops in order to deal with allergy symptoms.
April is taxes.
April (2001) is when my stepfather died.
April (2018) is when my father died.
I hate April.
I even hate the character April on the tv show Gilmore Girls. She disrupts one of the best relationships on the show. She’s whiney and annoying. When she’s on screen as I rewatch, I fast forward.
April is the hardest month of year for me as a college professor. I’ve decided that the last month of the fall semester isn’t so bad because Thanksgiving and Christmas make me happy; I don’t seem to feel as overwhelmed by the work.
But April.
In April, the grading seems endless. I was setting the alarm for 4:30 am trying to get caught up.
April means I’m exhausted and cranky waiting for April to be gone.
So I hate April.
The reality, of course, is that my life changed not at all from April 30 to May 1. The first week of May was absolutely grueling since grades and an annual review were both due May 5. I was on my computer so much that I got headaches and my vision blurred. Plus, there was that three-hour meeting and another that went an hour.
But at least it wasn’t April.
I say all of this knowing that April is no more than a figment of my imagination. One date means nothing more than another on the calendar.
I hate April because I expect to hate April. I’m tired, at least in part, because of my negative April attitude.
Sure, there’s grading, pollen, taxes, and anniversaries of very sad days in my life.
There was also a very fun 10-mile run at Disney, the birthday of my youngest niece, and reunions with former students who generously visited my class to talk about their amazing careers with their degrees in English. There was Easter at my friend’s house.
The problem isn’t so much April but me in the month of April.
Maybe next year, I’ll call April by a different name or pretend that March is extra long or tell myself that May has come early.
I’ll remind myself that April is a state of mind.
Hating anything is a real waste of energy — and of time, especially since time as measured by a calendar is a fiction anyway.
For now, yay May! But don’t get me started on the lovebugs.
