September Update

I really have bungled it disgracefully, haven't I?

This post ought to have come about a fortnight ago- as it is, we're halfway through into another month already.

There's no excuse for it. I'm late, and I'm sorry.

There's always something to say about the weather (no, this website is not run by the MET office, though it might as well be), so let's begin with that.

September was hot. Unusually hot, markedly different from the deliciously chilly four degrees centigrade of October mornings. Indeed, it was hot until about the tenth of this month, when suddenly- without fussing with any pacing of any kind, or slow transition- mother nature realised that, quite like me, she hadn't caught up with Autumn.

But don't let my total disregard for punctuality delude you into thinking September wasn't worth punctuality.

September marks the start of a new school year, and for anyone under the age of eighteen then, new beginnings. For me, these new beginnings were more of a wallowing in the past- a mourning of the past, as much as any funeral could be.

I'd lost my friendship circle- or at least so I thought. I couldn't spend every minute between half-eight and four in their companionship, the most potent barrier of all- distance- separating us.

I'd lost the teachers whom I had grown to love in the past year; been plonked unceremoniously before new ones whom I couldn't understand, who didn't understand me, some simply boring- I judged rapidly- others idiotic, a few downright cruel.

I'd even lost my lanyard of the last year, the card disjoining itself from my blue ribbon without rhyme or reason.

I hung onto it, tying it together with a bit of spring, trying to repair it and the year that had preceded, trying to hold some semblance of the past together, my last remnant of continuity. I clung to it.

I've almost given up now. The card lies in the folds of my handbag- I can't bring myself to tie the string round it one more time, only to have it break the moment I rise from my chair. But I still won't let it go; I won't get a new one; I where the old frayed ribbon round my neck, and pray no one will notice the penalty-worthy absence of the card, which I pull out at the doorway from my purse.

I've spent September trying to keep my past together, and its only now the half-term dawns upon me, I realise just how well its been preserved.

Every lunch and break, a familiar seven troupe the library. They cannot sit at the old table of the last year- it's been de-assembled, the whole room rearranged incomprehensibly, like everything else- and yet they walk about like they did in old time, giggling as loudly as they dare with the 'SILENCE' notice staring down at them.

And, ultimately, that's all that matters.

The end of September means welcoming October. A happier October, when I find myself more reconciled to facing my situation now I acknowledge it isn't so bad as I thought. An October full of birthdays and fun, and maybe even Halloween- though I doubt I will change course to celebrate it. An October of wonderful shudder-inducing gusts of cold. An October that will bring a November; more glorious weather, my father's birthday, Diwali... A November that will bring December in all its red and green and gold.

I promise I won't be late for that.