Why I Like the Last Day of the Month

I have shouted far and wide that I love the first day of the month. On the first day of every month I start a whole NEW LIFE! This is my chance for a new beginning! A fresh start! A do-over on my entire existence!

Then, of course, after a few days of astonishing myself with progress on every conceivable front, I slip back into the old life again. After all, who can sustain a whole new life forever?

So as the end of each month draws near, I can't help but notice a gap between what I thought the month would be and what it turned out being.

Here is where I remember the wisdom of my therapist from many decades ago. One month, say it was April, I had a session with her on, say it was the 28th, where I bemoaned that I was stalled yet again in the LaBrea Tar Pits of my life, with all my month's goals left undone. "So much for April," I said, with a weary sigh.

And then she spoke the words I've never forgotten: "There's still two more days."

Ooh!

The last day of the month is now a day I cherish. It is my last chance to do something to salvage the month that is about to end.

During my teaching years, there would always be some student who had started strong, but then drifted away, who left for spring break and never came back again. He'd slink into my office as finals loomed, distraught at what had become of his semester, and I could never resist saying to him, "Let's see how much of it we can salvage."

Today I'm going to see what I can salvage of April. I know that for many of us this particular April, this April of coronavirus quarantine, has been a month for sheer survival, where nobody has any interest whatsoever in salvaging anything. I get that. But I am still irresistibly drawn to salvaging what I can.

Today I know I can't possibly DO this one academic project that I should have done back in January, but just . . .  didn't. What I CAN do is drag it out and look at it. Just look at it. Then when May's new life begins tomorrow, I'll be that much more ready to leap into tackling it. My sister, who posts a wonderful quote from some famous person each day on Facebook, has shared this one from Joseph Conrad: "Facing it - always facing it - that's the way to get through."

So: on this last day of April, I'm at least going to face that overdue abstract for my contribution to the Cambridge History of Children's Literature in English. How glad I will be tomorrow that I did that today! I'm also going to catch up on the week's work for the online children's lit class I'm teaching for the University of Denver. My future self will thank me for that, too. I'll spend one blissful hour on my verse-novel-in-progress so I can cast an admiring glance on a few more pages. A few more pages is so much better than no more pages.

Today I am going to salvage April, at least a little bit, as best I can.