It’s the time of year where people are drawn towards pastel coloured nails, and soft skies, and flowy skirts, and gentle music. People take pictures of budding blossoms and the daffodils covering the meadows like a golden carpet and post them on Instagram – I do too. The gardens repopulate with flowers, the night stays lighter a little longer, and everybody everywhere is taking pictures.
Even the smallest signs of life are celebrated. My friend took a picture of a sweetpea sprout barely poking its tiny head through the soil. I find myself cheering it on, hoping that it makes it out on top. I want to commemorate the world coming alive again, to celebrate that what died didn’t stay dead, to believe that it’s possible to be reborn, and start over, no matter how terrible the winter was.
We all want to believe that life begins again and that we get a second chance at it, despite all the mistakes we made, all the wrong things we said, all the things still glaring at us on our ‘to-do’ list, all the ways we didn’t change even though we said we would. We set time aside to clean our homes, to dust off the cobwebs of the past, to give love another try. We tell ourselves this is the season we’ll become. This is the season we’ll nurture our friendships more, save more money, get better work-life balance, eat healthier, exercise more, develop better sleep patterns and all the other things we failed to accomplish during the winter.
And there’s so much hope in the air and all around, teasing us with signs of new life every day that we can’t help but believe it must be true. Every year, at the first sign of spring, girls wear dresses, even though it’s still too cold for them. We open our windows and let the April air perfume the room, even though it’s only 8 degrees. We walk to the park, stepping over the white, purple, and yellow crocuses that are blooming out of the once frozen land, wishing we’d worn a thicker jacket, that we brought our umbrella.
Every April, the season makes a fool of us. In our longing and eagerness to be resurrected, we make the same mistakes and fall for the same traps, even though we’re older now, even though we know better, even though we were tricked last year and the year before that. Like the gullible sheep that continues to trust the fox dressed in wool, we never learn. Every April, we rush to the soft green light shining into our windows with hope, we throw on our summer skirts – confident that spring is really here this time, no matter how many false starts it already had – and I don’t think that’s silly or stupid: I think that’s beautiful.
Things I Learned Growing Up 