TS Eliot says “April is the cruelest month” in The Wasteland, but April really has nothing on the first day back to work after spring break in March. For a few days, you get to pretend summer is almost here. You get to toy about with the idea of gardening, drag some furniture out to the patio, enjoy the blue birds swooping in.
Then wham. It’s over. Summer isn’t here at all. You have tons more work to do, and aren’t you a fool for not having tackled as much as possible while you had the chance?
It hits you hard this day in March. It hits like it chewed you up and spit you off a cliff. It hits like a broken promise, like a mirror into too many unrecognizables.
Oh, yes, I do know that all of you people who didn’t have last week off are rolling your eyes and playing imaginary sarcastic violins at this point. But just you come stand in this day. Just you come face down this insistent need. Just you come put back on your own anxieties like a cheap suit the Goodwill box keeps giving back.
This is the cruelest day.
And how are you today? As for me, I’m glad to be back at work.
I heart you girl! Eventhough I don’t get the week off, sometimes the being off is not worth the coming back. I heart you girl!