Tag: change

November

It feels strange that it’s November already.

Not even a month ago, I finally handed in my last deadline for my course.

This time last year, I was partway through my first deadline for my course.

I feel like we must have missed a month or few somewhere. I’m not sure what happened to July. Or March. I’m not sure that March really happened. I don’t remember much from it, that’s for sure. The same with September. September just completely disappeared this year.

But they must have happened, as the calendar on my computer tells me that today is the 7th of November.

They must have happened, as we’ve had Hallowe’en.

They must have happened, as my course has finished, as Nanowrimo has started, as my older sister has added another full year of life to her collection. It’ll be Christmas before we know it, then the start of 2019.

Isn’t that a strange thought? It’s almost the start of the new year already.

This November feels a bit weird.

The last time I had a November without being in education was when I was three. I don’t really remember that far back, and I didn’t have the same options then as I do now, so it’s a new experience for me. I have a November during which I don’t have any coursework to do. I don’t have a timetable to stick to, and I don’t have school or uni events planned that I need to attend. I don’t really have much of anything planned, at all.

I’m used to being busy in November. I’m used to having a lot on all the time, be it work or ensembles or just life.

So far, since my deadline, I’ve slept a lot, and not done much else.

It’s really strange.

It’s making this November feel like it’s just a crossover month between the end of my course and the Christmas period. It feels like Christmas will be the next big event happening in my life, and I’m just waiting for it now, even though it’s not.

This Sunday, the 11th, is Remembrance Day here in the UK, an important day in its own right. And this year marks one hundred years since the end of the first world war, so it’s even more important than it has been in previous years.

In two weeks time, I’ve got a sport tournament. No matter how it turns out, it’ll be a big event. The outcomes of the matches we play will determine whether my team will play at the national tournament or not, so it’s my biggest weekend of this November.

And then in three weeks, Nanowrimo ends, and I’ll once again have attempted to write a novel.

So even though it may feel like it right now, this November is not just a filler month.

December, Christmas, and the new year will just have to wait.

hello-november

Changed?

There’s a picture from when I was five, at my Dad’s wedding.
I don’t remember it being taken.
I only really remember sketches of that day – bits of the morning, bits of the ceremony, bits of walking down to the reception, feeling embarrassed when we had to stop every now and then for pictures. The start of the reception. The toys my sister and I got. I still have the owl at home. I don’t know what happened to her doll.
The picture is one I’ve gone past many times, and haven’t always looked at in detail, but even when I do, I don’t think much about it. It’s a nice picture, and in some ways, I look almost exactly the same as I do now, except my hair is much shorter, my face younger and chubbier, and my frame much smaller.
But my expression is the same.
The feeling I get from it is the same as how I feel now.
There were many pictures taken that day.
It was a wedding, pictures are almost always taken at weddings.
I remember some of them, but not this one. I couldn’t say when it was taken, who took it, what they said, what I said. I couldn’t say what happened before, after, and as it was taken. I don’t remember who was around me.
What was I like that day, I wonder? How much have I changed since then? In what ways am I still the same person?
I know who I am now, or mostly, at least, but who was I at the age of five?
In some ways, it feels as though it was another person back then, that I was a different person back then.
But it isn’t, and really, how much have I changed from the little girl I once was? Even after so many years, there are things about me that don’t change, that haven’t changed, that I can’t change.
Instinctual things.
Genetic things.
Thoughts change, and appearance changes, and how you interact with the world changes, but the person you are, the person you’ve always been, does that stay the same? Is it only something drastic that can change who you are, or are the hardships of life enough? Or is the person you are in your core something that rarely changes?
How much do we change over time, really?

Changed?