Tulips bloom on a hillside at Fort Allen Park in Portland in June 2023. Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald

There are many “official” first days of spring: the meteorological start on March 1, the vernal equinox happening Thursday and the opening of Major League Baseball’s regular season next week. To Mainers, none of them register as anything more than dates on a calendar.

A more accurate first day of spring in southern Maine, on average, would be in mid-April, says News Center Maine meteorologist Keith Carson. But this year? He thinks we’re already there, meaning even that wildly unreliable groundhog is right on the money.

Still, you’re not going to see anyone stowing away shovels or changing out their wardrobes for a while. There’s a reason we love that meme about the season’s many false starts and winter’s insistence on popping back up. If the most reliable thing about spring in Maine is its volatility, the punctual arrival of consistent 50-degree days — like we’re having right now — seems like the least probable scenario.

But with the same forecast taking us through the end of the month, when Portland usually sees its final inch of snowfall, Carson is convinced it’s the real thing. He thinks we’ll still have another snow event, but if it melts quickly, Mainers are less likely to see it as an unwelcome sign of lingering winter than as something sort of fun.

The question now is whether we’ll be able to let our guards down and actually enjoy the change of season, rather than staying on high alert in anticipation of a backward turn.

It probably doesn’t help that this time of year tends to bring out our nervous energy, according to Megan Roy, a psychotherapist at transitional living program Cornerstones of Maine in Biddeford.

Although there’s a lot of talk about winter’s shorter days causing seasonal affective disorder in some, Daylight Saving Time has its own way of altering our mood, including increasing irritability and exhaustion, Roy said.

Allen Del Rosario stands among the dandelion stems at Bug Light Park in South Portland while flying a two-line foil stunt kite with a 50-foot tail in June 2023. Ben McCanna/Portland Press Herald

Maybe that’s why we’ve leaned so hard into spring’s annoying qualities; complaining about it suits our mentality right now.

For a more productive way to cope, Roy recommends meeting that excess energy with an activity. While we might have gotten used to taking out our aggression on snow piles, this year, we’ll have to find other ways to let off steam (Googling “things normal people do in spring”).

Going for a walk or meeting up with a friend are fine ways to take the edge off, Roy said, but even better is trying something new. That could be flying a kite or feeding ducks (thanks, Google), but I suggest something simpler: Accepting that this spring comes with no strings attached.