Holy Crap Guys, May is the WORST. Every year I say May is the worst and I swear to God, every year May gets worse.

Now I know what some of you are saying. “But I thought you HATED winter? You must be so excited for spring! What are you complaining about NOW?!” And I know. I know how I sound. But I’m sorry, May is the WORST.

First, let’s talk about the fact that I haven’t really been able to see clearly since April. Pollen is kryptonite to contact lens wearers. I’m dying. DYING. My eyes are itchy, watery, goopy, and I want to tear them out of my head and live my life blind at this point. The first thing I do every morning is scrape the crust off of them so I can open them. I suffer all day long blinking away goop, desperately trying not to claw at them, and seeing the beautiful spring colors through cloudy lenses. I’ve tried every allergy medication out there with little to no improvement. I even spent two hours at a walk-in only to walk out with a steroid since I had given myself a double eye infection. The steroid gave me tons of energy and cleared up the infection but I’m still fighting the war on pollen. I pray, every day, for rain.

Next, my children are the busiest human beings on the planet. They also are “joiners” and, despite being so busy, they VOLUNTEER to participate in additional activities! It’s soccer season and all three play soccer. It’s dance recital season and two dance. It’s also end of the year school activity season and I have one in the chorus and one in the band and one still in elementary school and you know elementary schools—they have no idea that parents work. Hey, want to come see your daughter’s end-of-year PowerPoint presentation? It’s at 12:15. Come celebrate the end of the year by joining your daughter for lunch! She eats at 10:45. At the middle school I’ve got two band/choir concerts, an installation ceremony, an awards night, a completion ceremony, and a spring dance. I’ve also got a Girl Scout so her May is loaded with end of year activities and she’s marching in a parade. I essentially will spend every afternoon and evening for the entire month of May in my car driving my children all over town OR sitting in a stuffy auditorium watching one of my kids do something fabulous. All through foggy contact lenses.

Additionally, I’m a school based speech-language pathologist. This means that May is a really difficult month at work. I have many, many, transition PPTs for my students. Some can be difficult to navigate and require a lot of attention and thought and I often leave work either exhausted from a hard day or stressed about what’s coming the next day. When I’m not in meetings, I’m working with very tired, very checked-out teenagers, many of which are also fighting the fight with pollen alongside me. No one wants to DO anything. No one wants to TRY anymore. No one wants to BE HERE (read all of the words in caps in a whiney voice and you’ll understand a little of what I listen to all day long). An added bonus is trying to accomplish anything with these whiney teenagers WHILE being observed by my evaluator since “there’s only a few weeks left and I need a few more observations for your end-of-year eval!”. Sure. Come on in. Doing my best work in here.

Then we have the clothing issue. It snowed on the first day of May and was ninety the week after. Every other day has been anywhere between 45 degrees and 80, sometimes within the same day. My kids have absolutely nothing to wear and never know what to wear. I have piles of winter clothes (since some days they still need them) alongside piles of spring clothes that may or may not fit any of them. Every morning we watch the local meteorologist wondering if he has any freaking clue as to what this day will bring and hope for the best as we get dressed. Since I have girls, two of which are in middle school, “hope for the best” means angst and at least one comment to me that I really need to take them shopping because they have “NOTHING” to wear. And I need a new dress for the spring dance. And my cleats are giving me blisters. And I need a different dress for the awards ceremony. And my flip flops are broken. Can we PLEASE got shopping this weekend?? Sure. We have four soccer games, dance company auditions, a picnic, and an art class. We’ll squeeze it in.

Finally, I have no time for my own self-care. I usually exercise in the late afternoons or evenings. Taking my preferred kickboxing classes requires me being available when the classes are being offered. Just re-read the part about my children’s schedule and you’ll understand, I maybe make it to one a week. I could get a run in at some point but then I’ll be the sweaty stinky person sitting in the stuffy auditorium at whatever concert or ceremony happens to be that evening since I’ll have time to run a few miles but no time to shower. We are eating like garbage since many nights we can either have dinner at 4 or at 9:30 limiting our options. My weekends are so full I have very little time to sit and relax. I’m desperate for a cut and color and since getting that in is a non-negotiable I’m squeezing it in between a soccer practice and dropping off and picking up my daughter from an event she volunteered to attend at the middle school. At least I’ll have fabulous hair while I sit in my car, at 8:00, waiting for her to appear.

So, May is the worst. I always brace myself for May and I always hope for the best and every May is just the worst. We are at the halfway point and I’ll just keep trudging along, mostly blind, and I know we’ll get through it. June, my absolute favorite month, is starting to come into focus (well it would be coming into focus if my eyes would clear up). Sweet beautiful June always makes the stress of May a distant memory.

OH! We also had a raccoon issue. Do you know what dead, rotting raccoons smell like? That’s right raccoons–with an “S”. I do. But that’s a story for another time.

Seriously. Is it June yet?