Emerging Patterns: Why I Hate August
It’s happening again, it happens every August.
This week I traded in my lockdown uniform of pyjamas and the same three t-shirts for real clothes and the promise of an eight till four weekly routine. Having sported six different job titles in four years, my first day of work nerves have become as common as meeting with a friend living long-distance or changing the batteries on your smoke alarm. Greeting my nerves like an old friend, the kind you struggle to shake but welcome with open arms, my worries began to mount.
The evening before starting a new position has always been the same for me. I’ll lay out the day’s attire, soak in a bath of my own apprehension, mumble my way through a pep talk after brushing my teeth and then head down for a restless night’s sleep. There’s always a restless night’s sleep, it’s a given.
As two o’clock arrived, the notion of sleep felt like a foreign concept and boredom began to take flight. After dragging my anxiety-riddled self to the bathroom, I began shuffling through a YouTube playlist of my own creation (of favourable movie trailers) and my worry began to ease. It was at this moment I remembered August was on the horizon and my heart sank.
I’ve always enjoyed August. In the remaining few weeks of summer, the palette of the outside world tends to intensify before cowering away before the winter months. As festivals draw to a close, the rain hits a bit harder and the inevitability of back to school stationery is a given on the shelves of our supermarkets. The transition between August and September has always promised a fresh start, the beginning of a new school year and the opportunity to return a little changed from a summer of self-discovery.
But, I don’t enjoy August anymore.
In the last four years, August has given me a reason to worry about an emerging pattern. Having experienced two breakups, the increasing stress of 2019 and the pivotal emergence of a breakdown at 21 leaving me changed for years to follow, August has not been kind.
Having such negativity emerge around the same time each year, I’ve developed anxiety towards August as if it were a Monday morning alarm and dreading it throughout the weekend prior. I believe that everything happens for a reason but expecting the worst has often been my downfall as self-sabotage has become a default setting.
Self-awareness is something that has always come easy to me. If you’re highly self-aware, you can objectively evaluate yourself. I think about August as if it were a mistake, a regret of mine, a moment of cringe that I remember every now and again that shakes me with fear. A similar fear like crying in public or being trapped in a bowling alley toilet cubicle at a children’s birthday party, 14 years ago. That actually happened.
I think it’s time to break the pattern. It’s time to do what needs to be done to stave off something worse. I’m sorry August, resentment is corrosive and I hate it.
Routine is key here, making plans and keeping on top of my own emotions. My world is in my hands and I’ve got to do something with it. It’s time to take a stand and stop expecting the worst, self-sabotage is detrimental.
Maybe this is the beginning of a road back, there has to be a road back.
I look to August with hope this year and so should you.
