A mid month catch up: August

August started with a hair cut; not an overly dramatic hair cut, but one that feels like it has some significance all the same.

It was quite an impromptu decision, made on the way to the salon, but sometimes I find that just an act of change is enough for a much-needed boost – a mini awakening of the self, if you will – and that’s what I’m enjoying most about it.

And we can get onto the feelings that go alongside that later, because newly-short locks aside, August thus far has ultimately felt to me to be about one thing and one thing only: one of my favourite people in the world got married!

Not only did this mean I went to the most beautiful wedding I’ve ever had the pleasure of attending, but better yet I did so as a bridesmaid for one of my very best friends. I actually don’t think I have the words to explain how joyful this day was; bursting at the seams with so much love you could physically feel it envelope you the moment you arrived.

This was truly the best day of the year so far for me, despite what the number of tears shed would suggest. I think I clocked up around 8 or 9 individual cries, beginning in the getting ready session and ending as we said goodnight to the bride and groom. I will almost certainly be on a high for the rest of the month, just through being present on such a special day. Sara-Jane and Matt, I love you more than I can possibly say.

And now that it’s happened, my thoughts and memories of all of the time surrounding the wedding are a bit blurry. The days leading up to it feel very distant now, and I only really know that I was making last minute arrangements for the morning, trying to complete anything I didn’t want to think about at all when I was there, and existing in anticipation. The time since (and it was over a week ago now) has flown by, consisting of work, general day to day life tasks, and for some nostalgic reason, watching the Beatrix Potter TV shows on youtube.

Anyway, I returned from Oxfordshire (where the wedding was) bloody tired but riding some wave of happiness and feel raring to go on getting my shit together.

The rest of the month will mostly be about getting on track at work and at home by tackling the stuff I’ve been putting off for a long time; the things you (read: I) sideeye with distaste and avoid in favour of easier or quicker tasks, before arriving at the end of each day and dutifully moving it on to the next to do list. September is generally a time of motivation for me, and it would be great if I could point said motivation in the direction of new and exciting projects rather than the things which are weighing me down.

Because I do have a habit of letting things do that, thanks to my tendency to procrastinate, and I feel like this month I have started to shed some of that pressure a bit and lean into things that make me happy more. One such thing was Instagram, which as I’ve hinted at before, I really don’t enjoy. The photo taking, yes, but I find the platform itself incredibly draining, so alongside my few inches of hair I also abandoned the app for a couple of weeks, and it’s been wonderful. I guess the next step is to decide what I want my approach to it to be going forward.

Aside from that, I really just want to enjoy the last of the summer; Rob has been studying every weekend for a couple of months now, and it’s meant that sunny days out have been few and far between. Of course, the absolute shit show that was the weather has also been responsible for that, so I’m hoping there’s a little more in the way of blue skies and bright days to come before we resign ourselves to boots and cold once more. Summer feels like it’s been very short this year so although we don’t deserve it (we are killing the planet, after all), it seems to be what we’re all craving.

The final thing I’m determined to do in August is get the holiday I’ve been claiming I’m going to book since June sorted. We want to go in September, which really does feel like coming full circle, since we also went away last September (the trip to Italy for which 6 blog posts are still sitting sadly in embryonic note format) and it was while we were away that I published my first of these posts.

With that in mind, this is my final mid month catch up, since I’ve now been doing them for a full year and it seems a nice well rounded point to stop on. I never really expected anyone to read them; it was more of an exercise in pushing through procrastination, since writing about everything I wanted to write about felt prohibitively full of self-inflicted pressure. It served a purpose, but my life is broadly made up of the same boring stuff as most people’s – going to work, eating stuff, trying not to fuck up too badly and wondering what the meaning of it all is – and I’m fully aware that they’re not particularly interesting, despite the fact that lots of us are nosy.

I do however think that the monthly format is useful for me, and returning to something every few weeks feels comforting in a way, so from September there will be a different regular post of some sorts. I’m yet to fully plan what that might be, but I’d like to write about some more things that fall under the ‘entertainment/pop culture’ bracket (TV, podcasts and books most particularly), and since I hope to be consuming at least one of each of those a month, it feels like something in that arena would be a good fit.

With that in mind – I’ll see you there! If there’s anything you have enjoyed from these, just let me know, and I’ll have a think about how I can include it in another way. Thanks for reading my monthly rambles, and have a bloody lovely August – tell me all about it in the comments!