It probably would have been the most straightforward option today, to just dust off the old #autumnvibes/ #backtoschool spiel and start winding it - once again - up the social flagpoles.
Rather than ‘fall’ (pun intended) into step with this popular autumn-pending narrative, however, I’ve this year decided to remain defiantly ‘team summer’, for a little longer at least.
No pumpkins
No cosy core
No platitudes of ‘where has the year gone!?’ (Yet!)
You could say this resolution is part of a deliberate, much wider bid to be become less… ‘anticipatory’, shall we say.
In other words, to become more present-minded, and stop quantifying time in terms of the ‘almosts.’
It’s almost summer.
Almost winter.
Almost my birthday.
Historically speaking, my brain has always had this habit of walking two steps ahead of my person, at all times.
Best example? Always referring to myself as my next successive age…sometimes many months before the associated birthday even comes around.
*Cue snippet from a getting-to-know-each-other conversation with my now-husband:
‘I’m 28’
‘So when’s your birthday?’
‘June’
‘…. (puzzled silence)… that makes you 27?’
Busted!
As for the logic behind this unique, self-aging quirk, I can only liken it to that of wearing in a new pair of shoes.
Those weeks/months trying it out around the house - it somehow softens the fabric of the next impending number just enough, to make it a whole lot more comfortable to wear, when the need so demands.
I'd liken it as well, perhaps, to that nervous traveller habit of checking in excessively early to the airport. It offers a kind of mind-ease. A peace of mind that ‘I’m here now, so I can relax!’
Of course, this thinking gives no account for the fact that the priceless luxury of the present (ie. Extra time at home. Extra time being 27!!) is being used as little more than a leap frog!
It’s deep, I know!
Deep… but also pretty nonsensical, which is why I’m trying hard now, to rid my lexicon of the weeds of 'nearlys’ and ‘almosts'...and replace them with 'is' and 'am' at every opportunity.
It is *still* summer!
It's mid-afternoon (not nearly dinner time...as I often tell my children at 3pm)
I am 40!
There are of course some exceptions to this rule. Christmas - for starters, and holidays, for second.
For these precious highlights of the calendar year, I'm officially reserving the right to forgo the many benefits of present-dayism, and trade them in, instead, for the enlivening elixir that is...'not long now!'