Reflections Upon The Occasion Of A Thursday Morning In May

I have said, for many years, that while I do not hate the holidays, I hate the holiday season: that long stretch of October, November, December, and early January where the light grows dim, the traffic grows absurd, and tempers grow short. That is all well and good, but it occurred to me a couple of years ago that in many ways this profound dislike was misplaced. Yes, the holiday season can be stressful, as can the holidays themselves. And yet...

October is not actively trying to kill me. Neither is November, nor December. No, for the past twenty years or more, that honor goes to May. May is the month that wears me down, grinds all my projects to a halt -- sometimes beyond any hope of recovery -- and leaves me in a post-traumatic recovery phase when it finally deigns to depart. May is the month of endings, when everything comes apart. May is the month when everything tries to happen at once.

I'm finding that while it's less so this year, with the new job and some of the old job's responsibilities no longer mine to carry (but, I'm told, left under the supervision of some of the least capable management in the Metroplex and possibly anywhere on the planet) May is still doing its bloody-minded best to kill us. A work conference for me that naturally overlaps with our attempts to get Secondborn through the final few weeks of school (and an emergency room visit), Firstborn packed up and out of his dorm room (he's home now), and Beautiful Woman into some sort of new job; a camping trip that doesn't quite overlap with any of that, but comes right on its heels and right before we'll be attending graduation ceremonies (and also requires a great deal of last-minute re-shuffling); and the gods know what else I might be forgetting. 

Some days the only way forward is to keep cutting and hope that your opponent falls first. So, my dear readers, keep both hands on the hilt and press forward with everything you've got. The gods willing, May will fall before we do.