Hate is a strong word. So, I will say: I really, really, REALLY dislike Aprils. They make me very uncomfortable.
I postulate that it is because as a toddler, my extroverted mother threw introverted little me a birthday party. Since my birthday falls at the end of April, the entire month was about me (or more accurately, my party) — the cake, the decor, my dress. My mother moved on from party planning hence, but she left a little twisted psyche in her wake. April became the month I turn the spotlight on myself.
Every April, I unconsciously put myself on stage for appraisal; I inspect the physical changes and contemplate what is ahead. And every April, I am fraught with melancholy and dread.
On my 7th birthday, for example, I knew I was entering what Catholics call the the age of reason, and despaired that I was no longer a child of God (did I mention twisted psyche?). At 11, with the onset of my period and a morphing chest, I braced myself for the implications of womanhood, motherhood, and girlfriendhood (not necessarily in that order). Every year in my 30s, I worried about the mounting loss of coolness or pick-up-a-guy-at-a-bar-ability. And now in midlife, I fret over the loss of any relevance in society and, more importantly, any control over a softening midsection.
Thus, my deep dislike for Aprils. They illuminate change and impermanence. And the past two Aprils have been especially intense reminders of mortality.
Over the years, I’ve coped in various ways — distractions; being grateful; taking care of my health. But I come back, April after April, to my ever aging body and the temporal nature of everything I know and love. And year after year, I am felled.
Two birthdays and a full year in lockdown, however, has carried with it a gift. With the dearth of distractions and the incessant reminder of our temporality, I am forced to do nothing but Stay. To learn to sit and soften to the inevitability of aging and impermanence.
More often than not, it is a biyatch. And more often than not, I fail to rid myself of the angst.
BUT BUT BUT. There have been moments, rare MAGICAL moments, when I am able to turn off the spotlight on the graying hair and the shaky future, and allow them simply to recede into the shadows.
Rumi says:
Forget the future.
I’d worship someone who could do that.
On the way you may want to look back, or not.
But if you can say, There’s nothing ahead,
there will be nothing there.
In these rare moments, when I am able to forget the future, when I take it off center stage and place it with trust at the feet of the One that is much larger than I am, I know all will be well. In the deepest way — in aging, in sickness, in loss — nothing is ever lost. And in these extraordinary magical April moments, I touch peace.