Dear September,  Once upon a time, I absolutely dreaded your return. September meant returning to the place I feared most growing up. Halls haunted by hearsay. Classrooms cursed by clowns. Playground plagued with pressure.  From my first day to my last I do not remember a day where I was free from a remark, a push, a laugh at my expense. Be it one person or a group I always went home wandering what was wrong with me. When home, it wasn’t easy. My mum was single and struggling to make ends meet. She had two jobs. My clothes were mostly second hand, and our shoes would often be full of holes. Eating tinned ravioli to get by was about all she could afford. In time she met someone but that someone, who she later married turned out to be nasty, spiteful and was himself a bully. So not only did I fear the classroom, but I also now feared my home.  Often it went unnoticed. Behind closed doors. If any shouting went on in front of anyone it would be followed with a laugh, a shrug to make out that it wasn’t serious. But I’d soon be pulled to one side to be reminded it was serious. I lived and put up with verbal attacks daily from the age of 10 to the age of 25. Insulted. Mocked. Embarrassed.  I think I would have preferred the odd punch compared to the internal scarring and weakening that it manifested. So weak I turned to drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. Believing there was something wrong with me and that I needed fixing.  

All whilst trying to understand if I was attracted to boys or girls. All whilst my body was changing. Developing lipoedema in my legs. Having an overbite that made me look like bugs bunny.

Whilst my peers were all slim and wearing skirts and smiles, I could barely look at my lower body or my face without crying.  I look back and wonder how I managed to handle a lot of the hits I took, emotionally, to manage to be somewhere now that I never expected and I still cannot figure it out. If I’m honest I don’t think I have ever or will ever fully recover. It sits on my shoulders daily. It forms my current behaviours and reactions. When people ask why I get so upset if a group of girls head out together and don’t ask me along. I automatically am taken back to our army day at school. Where I was the last pupil in a group of 200 to be picked for a team. It might be so insignificant to some, but it really was not for me. I had never felt smaller. Convinced not one person liked me. That was in my first year of Junior High… there were still 4 years to get through. To anyone reading this, who is wishing time away, like I did… Try flipping the mindset… Try wishing for more time. Because with more time, we can do more to maximise the possibility of positive interactions and experiences. The more time we have the more time we have to forgive, forget, breathe, write, and share. All actions that make for a better future, as hard as it might be in the moment.  

All those times, I couldn’t wait for September to end, and October to end, and all the months. Surely one of these months will end and the next will be amazing. I just needed to want more time. To achieve more. To have more time to myself in the evening to decompress. To find things to learn. To grow. To get me to where I might finally have stability. It worked. It really does amaze me that I am now sat here married, home, car and a job that pays ok. I have a BA Hons degree in Business Management and a master’s degree too, I studied both whilst working full time. Only God knows how I managed that.  

I am lucky that I have a holiday at least once a year and somehow even managed a bucket list of Disney World Florida. Which as a kid, I never thought I would ever see. Living in the UK. Coming for a home with little income. But it happened.  That was the best September of my life… So dear September… thank you for the best memory. It took 34 years and a LOT of strength, but we got there in the end. I hope I can say the same for this next September, where I head to the Austrian Alps… with my Wife.