April Fools’

I have never enjoyed April Fools’ Day — not the concept, not the execution. Playing tricks on people has always seemed mean to me, and I have no interest in being on the receiving end either. There are better ways to get a laugh.

April 1st also carries a different weight for me. It’s my mother’s birthday. She passed away nineteen years ago, and what used to be a day I looked forward to — calling her, sending a card, hearing her voice — is now just a quiet ache. A distant memory.

Memories have a way of charging our emotions whether we invite them to or not.

Today, I’m sitting in a coffee shop that celebrates nostalgia. At the counter, there’s a small TV with a VHS player embedded in it, currently showing Never Been Kissed — a movie about a woman who goes back to high school chasing joy she missed the first time around, while confronting the pain she carried from those years. The shop is playing old-school R&B, so I left my headphones in my bag. Curtis Mayfield. The Gap Band. The SOS Band. I don’t need anything else.

It’s a sunny day. This is my second day of break and my third coffee shop of the week. That feels right.

Maybe that’s the lesson April 1st keeps quietly teaching me: enjoying what is real — the warmth of a room, the music that finds you, the sun through the window — is what brings solace when the calendar stings. No tricks. No performance. Just presence.

When the calendar brings up something painful, what’s one simple, grounding thing — a place, a sound, a routine — that helps you stay present instead of retreating?