April Rain, April Grace

If the week was difficult — and some weeks just are — I want to offer you something before the weekend: permission to call it complete without calling it a failure.

A hard week isn’t a bad week. It’s just a week that asked more of you than usual. And the fact that you got to Friday means you answered. Maybe not gracefully. Maybe not with the composure you’d have liked. But you answered.

April is a month of mixed weather. Warm days and cold ones. Sun that shows up strong and then disappears behind clouds without warning. That’s not a malfunction. That’s just how April works. You dress in layers. You carry an umbrella on the good-looking days. You make peace with the forecast not always matching the reality.

You can be like that too. Have your mixed-weather weeks. They don’t need to be more than what they were.

A hard week isn’t a bad week. It’s just a week that asked more of you.

What’s one way you can be gentle with yourself heading into this weekend?