I kind of hate to write this, given the weather that much of the rest of the country is suffering through at the moment, but … it’s been gorgeous here. Today we had weather in the high sixties, and after the morning fog burned off, it was sunny and clear. This is that rare time of year when the hills are green, not brown — and for an Anglophile like me, it makes my spirit absolutely rejoice.  Driving through the green landscapes, I can make believe that I’m back in the Lake District, which I visited in 1996 and have never been able to forget (not that I’ve tried — quite the contrary, actually). And the daffodils are starting to flower in my yard … little sunshiney missives growing out of the soil. It’s nice.
And yet, there’s a downside. I started asking myself today why I was feeling so worn-out and lousy. After running through the obvious reasons — two active kids, an exhausting job, ridiculously late nights and insanely early mornings — it hit me that all of this lovely green and blooming nature is causing its annual allergy attack. (Hello, post-nasal drip.) I’m going to have to hit the Claritin, big-time. And when things really start blooming, a few weeks from now, that’s when the itchy nose and throat will get absolutely fiendish. (“You live in one of the worst parts of the county for the kind of allergies you have,” a doctor once told me bluntly.)
It’s a shame that something as lovely as spring comes with its own price tag, so to speak.  It would be nice if it were all bliss, all the time, from now until June. But I guess that would hardly be realistic. Very few things, even great and wonderful things, bring all joy all the time. The job you love demands overtime. The kids you adore throw up on your new sweater. The man you love never makes the bed. (If asked, he might say that the woman he loves never remembers to use the compost bin — or then he might not, because he is very gallant fellow, which is a large part of the reason why you fell for him in the first place.)
That’s just life. It’s a big old mix of good, bad, and sneezy. And you just accept it, and take the allergy medications, and go on gazing in rapture at the new green grass all around you, knowing that some things are really, totally worth it.
