The April Itch

Thoughts on the person I keep trying to become every April.

FYI: this a brain dump post as I just wanted to get todays thoughts out of my head.

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This morning I found an old sketchbook.

I wasn’t looking for it, I just found it as I procrastinated wanting to try some paints out (as you do in the middle of a work day). I opened it to the next page and found I had dated the back of the first couple pages of watercolour practice I had used it for. April 2021. A couple of hopeful pages, then nothing.

First I had a little giggle to myself realising it has been almost exactly five years since I had last touched the pages. It then took me back that was when I was still at University, feeling so lost with Covid still around and no idea of what the future was going to look like if it ever got back to normal, what my first big girl job would look like, where it would take me and who I would be. But a different one to the one writing this now.

After the amusement faded it, settled in and hit me harder than I ever expected, which is why I am here right now typing away.

My thought was oh that’s another thing I didn’t commit to and wondered what could ever of come of it(deep down I know nothing) but I realised back then I was in the current mindset that I am currently in. That April itch.

I noticed every April, without being aware I would push the reset button.

I just seem to get an itch I have to scratch. A need for a fresh start, to start something new or reinvent myself.

Maybe it’s the lighter evenings, warmer days creeping in or just that the new season shakes everything up. It makes me feel like my true version of myself is just within reach. I want to pivot everything. Fix everything. Become everything.

I have to also add. September does this too. But I was much more aware of this. I get that back to school feeling that never left and it’s my birthday month so there is always the must achieve X, Y, Z before my next birthday. But April seems to be where it starts.

The problem is it never continue, April or September.

Earlier this week I got an email that some domains were due to renew. Domains I bought in previous Aprils. Aprils again when I was full of ideas and energy, that quietly faded within the month ahead.

The amount of hours I have spent planning, creating and building businesses is actually shocking. Side note: there must be something in my personality about this. But I am always too scared to push to go live button or fully commit to buying stock after rounds of sampling.

But Imposter syndrome. All I can think is who would actually want to spend their hard earned money on something I have created? And yet here I am forever reading found stories, seeing beginnings that are similar to mind wondering how different things could be.

It’s not really retreat. It’s frustration. Some of these are things that I really wanted, and still want. Which just make it even harder to justify why did I not just keep going when all I want to say now is just keep going, make progress even if it is small.

Life gets in the way. Well, that’s what I say to myself. Being honest there is just that voice in my head of self doubt. But every April, the brightness outside outshines those thoughts making it easier to believe in a brighter version of myself.

I still feel that I’m not fully the person I am on the inside. There’s a version of my life I can see quite clearly that I’m not living yet. I can’t name or explain it. It is a feeling, a lifestyle, a sense that I just can’t touch with my fingertips. Some days I think it’s self doubt. Some days it’s comparison. Some days I just think it is what being in your twenties is about and is this actually how most people feel. Everything is moving so fast yet so still at the same time. Navigating careers, relationships, finances, travel, houses and just what life decides to throw your way.

But then I look back at 2021. SO much has happened and changed in just those few years since my bad watercolour pages. There is so much that happened that I hoped it would and so much I never thought would happen but did. And as I sit writing this I do have to say, I am happy with life. And I am genuinely very grateful for that.

As I get hung up on things that didn’t happened. Maybe I just need to remind myself that this is what your 20s are about. Figuring it out. Trying things, and being ok if they don’t workout. But at least I tried it for future me and I should be thankful for that.

I almost forgot to tell you… Just to add some additional humour and I laugh while writing this. I first started this Substack account… last April! And here we are, my third consecutive post in a year and it’s…April.

Something does feel different this year (and I am sure I will continue to say this every year), maybe its the few more years of life or I am getting better at approaching things slower so they stick a little longer. Or maybe the right things that are coming back are the ones really worth doing.

I’m not too sure what the post is really about but thank you (and congrats) for sticking with me and my random thoughts. Is there a time of year that makes you want to press the hard reset button on life?

J x

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