It's That Time Again...

They’re saying that it’s the hottest day of the year. This gets me every time, even before I recall the hottest days of my youth. Those days were hot. Hotter than anything you get nowadays. Then there’s the whole premise of this assertion. It’s just so premature. The first day of the year is always the hottest day of the year at that point in time. Then, as Winter gets bored with terrorising the landscape, and Spring attempts to make peace with the world, there are days that are warmer than the preceding days.

I will concede that these are cold days, followed by cool days and in the fraught and inconsistent weatherscape of Britain, there are eventually warm days. Hot days are localised in the midst of Summer, but again, where that midst is, is anyone’s guess. That’s why I am sceptical about the assertion that this is the hottest day of the year. Is it really? Methinks this statement is lazy and that it should go on to add; so far.

Adding so far knocks the stuffing out of the statement. The very hot day is diminished and this isn’t very fair, because it may well go on to retain its title, but any retrospective appreciation of this accolade will also be diminished. It’s like saying this is my husband, pausing and then adding so far. Or perhaps, this is my hottest husband, so far. But do we really have to be kind to a day in the same way we have to show kindness to husbands?

In my quest for balance, I cease staring balefully out at the hot day and decide to venture out into it. Even inside, protected from the direct rays of the show-off sun, I can attest to the heat emanating from this day that would claim to be the hottest.

The transition from inside to outside is noticeable. A wave of air washes over me and I am dampened by the heat. The instantaneous creation of sweat is a delight of the senses for all of a second or three, and then I am ruing my adventurous nature. Still, I’m here now and there’s no turning back. I will not allow a mere day to best me, regardless of the awards it has on its shelf.

The sun is blinding however I rotate myself, and so I go in search of refuge. In my garden is a little lean to. It is what could be referred to as cosy in order to avoid the ruder description of cramped. I sit down on the bench and shelter in the shade. There is no respite from the hot air, and the mountain of my torso runs with springs of perspiration. My body cries in the heat and I am confused as to the emotions that prompt this outpouring. 

I am not comfortable and in my discomfort I dial into the radio of my mind to see what thoughts I might be presented with on this supposedly hottest of days. My thoughts are not random, but the logic they adhere to must be deciphered and discerned. These are not easy creatures. There is no instant gratification with them. Or rather, whenever I have taken them on face value and sought to consume them, they have made me ill in punishment for my temerity and foolhardiness. 

I have made myself ill in this reckless consumption of my thoughts any number of times and have no doubt I will do so again. This after having at last thought about the nature of my thoughts. The clue is right there in the word itself, but since when has anyone taken the time to read the instructions. Even when the instructions amount to one, simple word. 

A thought is a representation of thinking, but it isn’t the act of thinking itself. That’s the kicker. If a thought arises in the mind, that is in no way thinking. Not conscious thinking in any case. No, a thought is an invitation to think. Sometimes, we may not be in the mood to think. We may not have the time or the inclination. But to take that thought and use it thoughtlessly is, I think (ha! ha!) a form of madness.

I am serious about the madness. A foul mood may give rise to darker thoughts presenting themselves to you, and in the consumption of these bitter pills, there is far worse to come. This is a midnight banquet of the mind that turns the lighting down until there is a threat of utter darkness, and with it a despair that would twist the girders of a bridge into arthritic fingers pointing to the end of days. Never mind the heat of the hottest day, the ice of despair is far more fearsome.

Thoughts are to be handled with care. The worst of them can and should be dismissed, but wholeheartedly and with a force of will. You have to mean it. And there’s the rub. We are the Chief Arbiter. We attribute meaning to those thoughts. Or not, as the case may be.

As I sat there, cooking at a steady gas mark seven, embarrassed at how I would never brown nicely in the oven-like heat and so remain pale, pasty and quite unappetising, the thought that emerged for my consideration was related to anniversaries.

My heart stopped and my breath stilled. My emotional response to this thought was panic. Had I forgotten an anniversary? I racked my mind and pulled out my phone with wet and slippery fingers, Having to dry phone and hand on less damp patch of t-shirt that I struggled to find in the sea of sweat soaking my clothing. There were no obvious anniversaries, and so I breathed a sigh of relief and my heart resumed its vital activities, satisfied that I remained worthy of life. For now.

The obvious logic to this thought was that this itself was an anniversary, albeit a potentially premature one. Time would tell on that score. The title of hottest day of the year may yet be taken from this day. I hoped not. I loved this time of year, but I was not loving my physical reaction to it right now. Later, I promised myself, I would lay in a warm bath and read as I cleansed myself of the aftermath of all this sweat. Baths and reading being two of my most constant and enduring loves.

But for now, I considered this day and what it meant and how it compared to other days and what they meant. The hottest day of the year was somewhat of an oddity because I could not stick it on my calendar. Having noted that, I did just that. I wrote hottest day of the year, and added the year to this date in a year’s time. I wanted to open that calendar note and take stock. I would think back to this day and see what I made of it via the lens of a day yet to occur. I would judge this day historically and edit its meaning accordingly.

I smiled as I did this. For me, this day was taking on more meaning and never mind if it lost its title to some as yet unborn usurper. I would remember. 

I sat for a while doing just that.

I celebrated the idea of anniversaries. All of them. Birthdays, festivals, bank holidays. There were more, but my train of thought was derailed by the counter to these recurring celebrations. I held birthdays responsible for this change in fortunes, then I brought anniversaries into the headmaster’s office for a telling off too. For all beginnings have an end. We are finite creatures and lucky in our limitation. The end of things helps us make sense of everything, and not just because we have a deadline to work to.

Thanking Death for his part in my life, I readily brought forth salient dates of note. Pausing, I wondered how much of this prioritisation was my active thinking and how much was gifted to me by supposedly random thinking. Thinking is not easy. It is not supposed to be easy. But thinking about thinking is even further from easy. Sometimes, I think thinking is obstinate in its unwillingness to be understood. It wants to keep playing the game and for it never to end. At least it’s not Monopoly, or not often so. Granted, there will be tears and a sudden anger that threatens to tip the board over, but somehow, I’ve never gotten to that point. Not yet, anyway.

The first anniversary I considered was only days away. This anniversary had experienced a death of sorts and held about it the ghost of what might have been. There is that about death, whether that is the death of a person you love or the end of a relationship with someone you love. You never stop loving. I am reminded of that whenever I visit with a memory. The love is there and it is for me to remember and celebrate that. Remove the love in the now and you lose it back then, the whole house of cards tumbles and crumples and then burns. And ashes are far less fun to play with than the cards of life.

Contemplating a particular day led to my regard of what was and what could have been. This is what an anniversary is for. To give thanks. Embrace gratitude and give everything you have for all that has already been invested. We owe that to our future selves. They wait expectantly further up the track. They await a baton worth taking from your tired hand and a race well worth running. We owe them much at the very least.

Sometimes, the failure is not ours. We did not bring about an end, but we have to own it all the same. Perhaps more for not having had such a significant part at the time. The anniversary that hung in the air as a reminder, but with no future left to it, was a question that I was still to find suitable answers to. My suspicion was that the entirety of the rest of my life was the answer. We are the sum total of all our relationships. Connections are the pollen we collect throughout our time here as we waggle-dance through life.

Casting my eye further along the year, I looked for other occasional days. Birthdays have never held much excitement for me. They are of fleeting interest. Like Valentine’s Day, I am of the opinion that we should make the effort all year round. Make the most of life. Passing the four hundred yard marker is never the end of the race. There are more laps to go. How many is not for us to consider. Do the elderly live harder than the young? Is there a sprint at the finish in a last ditch attempt to beat time itself?

As I considered further, I came to the end of Summer. September will always hold a fondness for me. Simpler days, that at the time were far from simple. My memory has distorted those days and made of them a fairy tale with no twee end. September was the start of a different type of year. A strangely fragmented year with plenty of holidays that were far from the holidays of adulthood. School was special. The first real foray into the world. A tearing from parental bonds and discovery of those of friendship and finding those special teachers who spoke to us with more than words.

It was around this time of year three years ago that I discovered what would be the beginning of the end. This was a gradual enlightenment. An opening of eyes and mind. This anniversary was not an anniversary that I noted at the time. I had to come back to this place in time and stick a flag in the dirt and mark this well. 

Neither did I equate this anniversary with any of the other dates that denote important strands of a life. Bookmarks and annotation to help us keep track and make sense of what we’ve done and what this means and so too, what is to be done now and in our futures. 

Stopping to take stock and ask what it all means. That’s what is required. I mulled this as my entire body cried in the shelter of my little lean to. I ignored its sobs and went on regardless. 

Christmas is a tough time for some. Christmas is a dark reminder when you are besieged by loss. Any loss. Grief is not restricted to death. To be alone is to experience death and a person can be in a room with people celebrating a Winter Festival in an attempt to breath life into the darkest of days and feel so utterly alone that it breaks their heart all over again. Loneliness in the midst of people is an isolation of unbearable mockery and angst. The message of Christmas is less lost on those who mourn, than on those who blindly consume. 

Christmas has yet to make a sense to me and that is why I like it. Christmas gives me something to live for. It’s not done with me yet and neither am I done with it. I will smile in the face of this coming Christmas even as it brings its gifts of pain. This year it will be a focal point of all my anniversaries, but it will gift me no end and I will accept its gifts with deep gratitude. 

From the pin markers of these dates I could more readily see the map of time. The map of my life. A map of meaning. Some of the pins were faded almost to nothingness, but I knew they were there all the same. There are no true ends. Even when there is a marker that matches the date on my headstone, there I will be, together with the meaning I shared with others.

Returning to the nearest of pins, I smiled ruefully and thought we’d almost made it to a significant point. A number. An arbitrary number when applied to a life or a shared life. Then I brought this together with the egg timer that I’d turned over as I uncovered the beginning of the end.

There was an inevitability to this. The pieces were on the board and the game had to be played. When the full enormity of this strand of my life became evident, I saw it as an unravelling of lives. Meaningful connections dissolved and everything began falling apart.

“There are no ends,” I whispered to myself in the sweltering heat of my garden, and I looked sorrowfully towards a house that had once been a home.

In the end, I could not do it all on my own. 

I could not hold it together. 

I was not enough.

At the time, I saw it as a test. A test of who I was and what I was about. What I was worth.

As the pain became unbearable, I was found lacking. I tried again and again. I raged against a certainty I could not accept and I fought for love and the truth that love thrives in.

That was my test.

To stand firm and never falter. 

To never lose sight of what counts.

To let go.

Understanding what it is that we must let go of is hard. Harder still is actually letting go. Only after I let go did I see it more clearly. I did not see it for all it was. I doubt I ever will. I caught enough of a glimpse to understand this; it was not mine. It never was mine. 

We cling to things that should never have been in our lives and with every anniversary date of that clinging, we add to our burden. Sometimes, we take from others to add to this burden. 

Do we do this in good faith? Or is it a sin we commit in favour of doing the right thing? I have yet to answer this question. But what I do know is that doing the right thing is the easy option. Choosing easy is a lie we tell ourselves, ignoring the consequences of every anniversary of the bad choice as our lives get harder and harder and so much worse for the mistakes we will not take ownership of. 

Admitting that we are imperfect. Owning that imperfection and being true to ourselves. That’s a part of letting go. 

Maybe this time next year I’ll get why we make this so hard. The release of that which causes us so much pain.

Maybe this time next year my house will be a home.

I wonder whether that day in a year’s time will try to outshine it’s brother from a year past. What I do know is that I fully intend to sit up straighter and bear the weight of all these tears more readily. 

This is the promise I make to my future self.

However hot it is, I will turn my face into that beating sun and smile. I’ll celebrate this anniversary for my being there and for my still standing.

And in the meantime?

I have three hundred and sixty four more anniversaries to celebrate, if I’m gifted each and every one of those miracles.

And now I stand and I close my eyes gently and I nod. 

I start the way I mean to go on.

“You’ll do,” I whisper to myself as I turn my head upwards and smile.

You should always look up because that’s where you’re headed.

I take the moment and I use it well. Then I walk back into that house and I begin to make it a home again.