May Day — May 1 – is a Thursday this year and it marks the halfway point between the first day of spring (Remember, it didn’t feel like spring? On the Cape, we had snow storm and a blizzard followed.), and the summer solstice. Traditionally May Day has been celebrated with dances, festivals and rituals related to fertility and agriculture.
So you might be wondering why I am going on about May Day? This year I started to write “Anti” Mother’s Day but stopped. I am calling in resilience for May 11. This is the first year I won’t have my mom with me on that day.
Thinking back to Mother’s Day during my fertility challenged years, I just wanted to run away and curl up in a ball and let the 24 hours roll over me from sunrise to sunset. I have to admit that those feeling are back. So when I started writing this newsletter and titled it “Anti Mother’s Day,” it felt completely wrong.
So I googled the antonyms for “anti” and the word that popped out was resilient. ‘What I know now that I wish I knew then’ during my fertility-challenged days is that “you are stronger, braver, more powerful that you know.” So as the waves of emotions come rolling over me about not being able to physically share the day — those 24 hours honoring mothers the world over — with my mom, I am promising to honor her in a different way.
I encourage you too to use your unlimited supply of resilience to honor you and your feelings around this day. Here’s a thought. A mere 12 months from now, our life circumstances will be different and we will never have May 2014 back again, so how do you want to spend the precious time, in anti sentiment or in resilience?
It is our free will and our choosing.
Kristen
(originally published on May 1, 2014)
