august and everything after
marking the beginning of the end of the year and the end of my 50s
I specifically remember few of my August birthday parties. They all seem to run together in my mind, the same thing every year - some cousins, the girl across the street, the kids of family friends. There were no classmates; not just because I didn’t have a lot of friends, but because there was no easy way to invite the class when you were between grades. So we’d gather in my backyard and my cousins would go swimming and we’d have cake and it all felt kind of superficial, that no one was really there to celebrate my birthday, they just wanted an end of summer party. I’d usually spend the day thinking about how summer was over and school was around the corner and life marches on whether you want it to or not.
Truthfully, summer “ended” for me way before my birthday on the 25th. The first trip to Sears in early August for new school clothes and supplies sealed the deal. It was time for reality to settle in. The freedom I felt in July, the joy I derived from going to the beach or chasing the ice cream man or running through the sprinkler was gone, replaced with the dread that a new school year would bring and the feeling that life was going a little too fast.
That feeling never stopped for me. Even as I got older and was done with school, August still marked the beginning of the end for me. It always felt like a harbinger of fall and winter, that the month was just there as a placeholder, marking the time between when the year felt new and fresh and when it felt like it was over. I’d walk into any store in August and see the stacks of marble notebooks and packs of number two pencils and I’d know: summer was gone, as was the year. Soon after, Halloween candy and decorations would appear in Walgreens as suddenly as the reams of loose leaf paper disappeared. Fall was still weeks away, but its presence was known and looming.
I love fall, it’s my favorite season. I love the chill in the air, the leaves turning colors, the early, beautiful sunsets. I am most comfortable in a hoodie with leggings and boots. I feel alive in fall, it’s when I accomplish the tasks I’ve been putting off, taking advantage of the extra energy I have during the season. But there’s an underlying unease to it all, the feeling that once September gets here the year just pushes itself out of the way, hurrying you along through Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas until you’re back in the dead of winter once again, praying for warmth and baseball and late sunsets.
August brings all of those feelings forefront. I’m constantly on the lookout for signs of autumn, but I’m wary of it as well. As my birthday approaches, I get both anxious and excited; I can’t wait for the fall weather, but I feel almost claustrophobic at the way time is moving.
I’m going to be 60 years old on August 25th. I’m dreading this birthday like no other. This has so far been a wasted summer for me, with spending May and June feeling sick all the time, July spent in either in the hospital or convalescing at home. I haven’t enjoyed any of it, I haven’t taken a sunset trip to the beach or gone swimming in my parents’ pool. I haven’t even been outside enough to complain about the head and humidity. And now, just as I’m getting ready to go back to work and resume a somewhat normal life, this milestone birthday approaches and I’ll be marking the end of my 50s as well as the end of summer. The summer, I don’t mind saying goodbye to all that, especially this year. But I’m anxious about leaving my 50s, about becoming an official old person. It is as though my life is entering its winter stage after being in summer for so long. It makes the upcoming change of seasons all the more poignant for me.
You may think I’m jumping the gun here on August 2nd, talking about fall and winter, but the pumpkin beers and ciders are out in the stores already and the Halloween candy is encroaching the spiral notebook shelves and before you know it they will be piping in Christmas music as I’m looking for Thanksgiving napkins and it all feels like doing a somersault down a sloped lawn. I’m not going to lie, I sometimes get excited when I see the Halloween displays so early. Fall gives me hope that summer - the worst season of all - is ending.
I will celebrate my birthday quietly this year. I’ll head to Rhode Island for a few days where I will usher in 60 with my sisters and I will try to celebrate all I have ahead of me while knowing that the autumn of my life is here. I’m going to try like hell to really enjoy the coming of fall and the whole season without also thinking about how time is marching on. I’ll wear my hoodies and drink the seasonal beers and revel in the cooler weather. And I will try not to dwell on the passage of time.