Spring Fever

In Calgary, we can pretty much guarantee we’ll have winter – cold, snowy or otherwise challenging. But spring? Now that’s another story.

Buddy’s birthday is mid-April. Some of his birthday parties were spent stuck indoors due to snowstorms and at others, the kids played basketball out in our backyard, wearing shorts.

Due to it’s unpredictability, many Calgarians feel the season bypasses us entirely.

Each year as the seasons cycle around to spring, I feel antsy. I am dissatisfied with winter’s comfortable cocoon. Life is suddenly “ruttish.” An intense spring fever overshadows everything.

I have a consistent pattern at this time of year. I crave change and the hunger is always intense. Maybe it’s that I’m dying to get outside after my long winter hibernation. Or maybe I’m ready for my world to look bright and new and it isn’t happening fast enough.

In the past, knowing I couldn’t change my home, my job, my husband or my kids, I’d typically cut my hair. Going back over photo archives, I can find a new hairstyle for each spring when the kids were young.

Cutting my hair might not have always been the best way to deal with my need to shake things up but at least it felt like I’d done a little something.

These days, I think a better cure is to renew the view. What I’ve really wanted all this time is a change of scenery to help take away the symptoms brought on by Calgary’s most volatile and frustrating time of year.

I think I’ve found the ultimate cure. This year, The Consultant and I have changed our annual winter escape to a spring getaway. I’m sure I’ll feel healthier by missing the unpredictability of what some here might call spring. I call it ‘crazy’ and will be looking forward to getting out of town.

So, we are changing the view. It will be from a little house on a hill on the northeast side of Crete. Just thinking about Greece, I feel better already. I hope it works.

What about you? How do you deal with spring fever?