Dear September,
You are my favourite month. You are the promise of autumn without the chill. You are the lingering summer without the heat. You are my birthday and, latterly, my wedding anniversary. You are the month that school starts back: you are new beginnings and change and a new pencil case. You are the month I prayed hardest for each of my babies (and you delivered).
You are my most nostalgic month and that means I have to be careful around you. I love nostalgia too much. I get caught up and I lose too much. I spend too long in the past, combing through old thoughts, feelings and social media posts. I first felt nostalgia when I was too young to feel nostalgic. Can a four-year-old long for a simpler time? I look at old photos of my family in the 70s and I feel nostalgic for a life I was never a part of. I want to hang out with my aunties when they were kids; I want to be in those genuine lux-faded pictures (no filter needed). I want to be in the before of it all; before things began to fall apart.
Death has ravaged my family this decade. But it’s not September’s fault. We can blame February and August for that.
September, please be good to us. It’s been a hell of a year so far. My daughter was just learning her place in the world and a pandemic tore it away. My baby was born into a locked down world and greeted with a masked mother. We’re now trying slowly reintegrate with a world that has changed forever. Everyone at a different pace and under different circumstances; all living under the shadow of the knowledge that it could go backwards at any time if we push it too far.
When the pandemic hit I inexplicably kept thinking of those people in the ‘Titanic’ movie – not Kate and Jack but the old couple who feel the end of the world approaching and just lay down in bed and cuddle together and let it surround them. I felt like I should gather my partner and my child and my unborn baby close and just let it happen, but in reality it was never really an option. It was a nervous, anxious time. Next September I’ll be nostalgic about it.
Steph
