A segue to September

It’s funny really how you can go through a whole season without really minding too much about what day, date, or even time it is, and then. Bang. The moment a new month or season hits, in rolls the anxiety.

This year, the first day of September fell on a Sunday. Sunday September scaries. Just what the doctor ordered after a lackadaisical summer punctuated by balmy evenings, solitary swims, and, for once, feeling a bit more balanced.

I’ve always thought that I was someone who hated change. I like the stability of routine, of knowing where I am and what’s on the horizon. I think I’ve been like that since the chaos of GCSEs- revising for twelve exams at the same time and trying to squeeze in as much repetition, repetition, repetition as possible. I think that there’s also something deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness about September being the start of a new year thanks to the ‘back to school’ moments which unfold in their multitudes across the first week of the month.

All I can remember about those days from Septembers past is how much I hated them. I hated the idea of summer being over, of having to squeeze my imagination back into the classroom for weeks and weeks at a time, of having to wait another year before experiencing those six sweet weeks of summertime freedom again. Of having to wear a school uniform which made me feel heavy, itchy and constrained- the complete opposite of everything which the summer holidays came to mean to me.

As I’ve eased into adulthood, I’ve found that the sensation of change is on the whole an artifice. The day-to-day aspects of my life are more or less essentially the same, and all of the things which I tend to let get into my head to worry me are nothing compared to the challenges which I’ve overcome already. The Septembers of school days are not the Septembers I have to think about anymore. Learning not to become a stress sponge for other people at this time of the year has become as much of an education as every day I spent in the classroom. I suppose the source of much of the adulthood anxiety is to do less with the feeling of being constrained, and more with the feeling of time passing me by; September’s here already, and before you know it it’ll be December, the end of the year, my 35th birthday. But. To be here when so many are not. To witness the slow segue into autumn, to soak up every golden sunset, every falling leaf, to relish in the transformation of the world as it goes to sleep for another winter is strangely reassuring. Spring, and then summer, will come again. And we will relish their return more than ever.