It’s April Fools Day, and I can’t take a joke. Like, at all. Every time I’ve been fooled or pranked or tricked, the way I feel is not amused, but ashamed. It feels like everyone set against me, like I‘ve brought shame upon myself by falling for it. I know, party pooper, right? I blame long-undiagnosed autism and the aftershocks of trauma…. But other than that, I’m super fun!
No joke, I can have fun, but often when I’m doing it, I feel bad for not doing some other thing I should be doing. And I also spend a lot of time doing neither what I think I should be doing NOR what I want to do, but anxiously hovering between them, or rediscovering emails I forgot about with things that I was told to do or promised to do but have not done. So, not as fun as I could be.
Today was different. Better! It is possible that I am actually learning how better to do being human than I have done before. It was a very good Saturday, even though all my problems are still problems and all my things I’m behind on are still things.
And it’s day one of Verselove. A poem a day, or some days, all April. Here is my poem today. May you have a day like this sometime. Or even every day.
I love it! It is enough, even if it isn’t all. I also love that you wrote in pen and took a picture. I whined that my notebook was in the hotel room and I was in a restaurant and time was ticking away…I like to write poems by hand, but had to write mine in the notes app on my phone. But it was enough too. Today was a very good Saturday, and your poem added to the very goodness.
I love the paradox in your poem: “Nothing was enough until I stopped doing what I was supposed to be doing.” That’s revelatory. And I totally get what you’re saying about April Fools jokes. My son pulled a rather cruel one on me first thing this morning. I cried. It could have detailed the day, but I knew I needed to read poems and be present for those posting. That helped a lot.
It’s my Spring break this week and my tank is seriously on empty, so this really resonates! I love the “season of too much all at once and not enough enoughness to go around” and the parallel constructions that follow! Looking forward to reading your poems this month!