I am not a big fan of April.
It’s a very unpredictable month that stresses me out! It is not consistently warm enough to put away the winter clothes and is still sometimes cold enough to still need sweaters and boots. By April I want winter to be over, but April pretends that winter is over while still being freezing on many days. The blooming flowers and trees lure me into thinking that it is going to be sunny and warm, but, nope, it’s still cold!
Still, there is value to this month…it offers excellent training for how to respond to unpredictable situations in life.
April teaches us that things aren’t always as they seem—it looks warm and sunny, but when you step outside it’s still cold. There are many situations that we encounter which seem positive but turn out to be less than we hoped and expected. Just today, someone told me about a career change she made thinking that it was going to be amazing, but once she started, she felt let down. We discussed how perhaps she didn’t have realistic expectations for this job, and if she had viewed it with a more critical eye, she would still have accepted it but not felt as disappointed when she started work. I have decided that my hopes for April are unrealistic—I am going to work on accepting April for what it is: a transitional month that owes me only the opportunity to move closer towards May.
April also shows us that we need to go with the flow—especially when we don’t have a choice. Life often takes us down paths we can’t imagine in advance—relationships, health, friendships may all not go as we hoped or planned. But those who are resilient, who can bend rather than snap, will psychologically fare the best. So, I am not going to take my winter clothes out of the closet. Instead I will accept that every day will be a new decision about what to wear. I won’t try to make April into a month of predictable fashion. I’ll accept that I need to wait for May to come around to do this.
April offers a lesson in seeing the best in every situation: I can’t promise that I will ever love April, but it does bring me closer to summer, for which I am grateful. Recently, a friend shared that some devastating weather damage to her home was an opportunity to make improvements that she would otherwise never have made. I love this optimistic mindset. I need to remember to make the best of April—look at the gorgeous Cherry Blossoms and not focus as much on the still cold, unpredictable weather that isn’t quite ready to be spring enough for me.
Happy April…almost May!