March Madness
Ramblings on the month of March…
By perceived time, the month of March has always been one of the longest months of the year. It is the Tuesday the year-long calendar. It is only now with global events of 2020 and 2021 that many people have stopped to pay attention to how the various parts of the year, like the dragging, dreaded March, feel in terms of time.
In like a lion, out like a lamb.
March 2020 was not exactly “out like a lamb,” but by the end of March 2020 the world was beginning to have an understanding that the pandemic and new ways of living under the circumstances were going to extend longer than the initially anticipated two weeks of lockdown. The confusion at the beginning was typical March fashion and the motion towards clarity at the end was the reward for reaching April. March is always the month of six months that no one wants to remember. When it’s over, April moves in with a nice pace and summer’s intensity passes like a week long vacation.
March is the month after the Lunar New Year, when leaning into our resolutions means being in the discomfort we need to change the things we intend to change. March is a month of cognitively beginning to put action to how we want to grow in the new year.
We had likely set our intentions in the January calendar New Year, then got sucked back into winter low-key living through February, its holidays, and our continued mental and physical hibernation. Once March hits, the grass is coming out, there is a newness in the air, however it is still cold and uncomfortable. We are ready to really start, we want to start, but are not quite there.
Right now, we are in the March of all March’s. In 2021, in the US and most of the world, began implementing vaccine plans in a slow rolling, uncertain March-style. The roll out was enabled by the winter-like progress of honing in and developing the vaccines, then clearing out some of the (political) toxicity that was inhibiting us from putting into motion the plans that are now being implemented. We made progress in January and February, we know there is more work to do and we are trying to do it, but there is limited momentum in March.
March is like running with a parachute causing drag. It is swimming up for air with weights strapped to your ankles. We had ideas for how we wanted things to be and we are starting to make those changes against the pull that does not want to put in the effort to change.
The knowledge that we have been through March many times and we can get through it again can be our motivation to sit and work through the unease until we see the light of April at the end. If we can get through this month through uncomfortable work that leads to growth, we will then be prepared to live more fully and authentically this summer.