March is the doldrums of the calendar. The holiday season is well past us and the shininess of the New Year is feeling a lot less shiny by the time March rolls around. By the third month of the year, we’re in the grind. It’s like when you get the first scratch or dent on the new car. That’s March. It’s still early in the year, but it’s not new anymore and it’s got some dirt on it. St Patrick’s Day is a fun holiday but that’s not enough to lift up the entire month.
It’s mostly still cold and/or wet. We might get a tease of warm weather but it’s just a tease. There’s still more cold weather ahead. We’re thinking of the warmer weather, thinking of cleaning up the yard and doing new planting. Thinking of doing fun outdoor activities but we’re not really there yet. We still have to keep waiting. We still have to make it through March.
Not quite Winter, not yet Spring. It’s an in-between time. A no man’s land. It’s a grumpy little month of wanting one thing to be over and anxiously awaiting the next thing.
This March in particular has a heightened sense of not quite one thing but not yet the next thing. This is the third March of the dark times that we call Coronamageddon. A lot of people and government agencies are acting like Covid is over. Mask mandates and other regulations have ended. Money to fund free testing, immunization and treatment for Covid is drying up. More people are out and about and less people wear masks. But Covid isn’t really over. People are still getting Covid. People are still sick and even dying. And many places still require a negative test while traveling (even if you can’t find a place to get a damn test).
Because of where this March lands in the context of Coronamageddon, it’s an even stranger in-between time. I came into 2022 with a bunch of pent up energy. I was determined to do more activities outside of the house this year one way or the other. I want to get out into the world again. Hang out with people again (ok, if I’m being honest, I really only want to hang out with a small, select group of people but they’re people that I don’t live with!). Do things, have new experiences, see new places.
But the weather hasn’t quite caught up to my desire to do more yet and it remains to be seen if Coronamageddon has finally been subdued enough to really come close to living the way we used to without the fear of death or serious illness. So, it’s the old familiar March feeling. Not wanting to go back to the previous winter months, wanting to enjoy warmer weather but being stuck in between. That stuck, not-quite-sure-where-we’re-at feeling is exaggerated this March. It’s a blah kind of month.
I’m ready to see what happens in April. To keep moving forward and hopefully finally break through the other side of the Coronamageddon fog that’s been smothering us.