So…it’s September. You may have noticed. Welcome back to your life. You know, that time of year when you slot back in, reinvigorated by your brown forearms, new jumper and sense of hope. Hope? Hope. Oy.
Last September (which was also last week) was insane; its crisp sense of anticipation (anything could happen!) infected by a vicious whiff of foreboding: ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN!
But, as this Autumn chapter opens on an increasingly vaccinated world, so the foreboding shifts gear. You are, perhaps, no longer looking outwards for the horror. You are looking inwards. It is sitting on the end of your nose.
And so, as we were saying: Welcome back to your life. What life? What does it look like? What do I wear now that work wants me to get dressed again? Should I be scared of parties because of my tiredness/ineptitude/vulnerability to infection? Is it me or does my house suddenly look so exhausted after 18 months of being pounded by relentless, 24-hour living? Is my job still the job it was or is it a new job? Can I do this job? Do I want to do this job? What do I want? Who am I? Why do I feel unrecognisable even to myself? How do I work through this intimidation?
This September we are having to learn how to re-inhabit our old lives. Lives made new through the turbo-shift that has occurred but simultaneously made shabby and threadbare through… that same turbo-shift.
This term is going to be hard work but, we might bear in mind, it won’t be the grind we have waded through for all these many months. It could be good hard work; the kind of hard work that reminds us who we are and what our lives could be. The kind that feeds us rather than stealing from us. And, with that in mind… Welcome back!
