“We’re here in the August slump”
Local Women columnist Jordan Arnold on the ‘weird’ end of summer vibe as we wait patiently for black tights season to begin again!
August is a weird month, especially in Northern Ireland. Because our ‘summer’ arrives far too early and gets us over-excited for very little in return.
One scorching week in April and we’re all predicting months of blistering heat when, in reality, the actual summer months are generally dull, damp and dreary, only intermittently punctuated with a rogue sunny day. It feels like one long hungover Sunday of summer.
A 31-day stretch where everyone and everything seems a little off. You can’t open a conversation without someone saying, “Can you believe it’s August already?” as if the very idea of it sneaking into the year is offensive.
And it is, a bit, because Hot Girl Summer hasn’t even gotten off the ground yet.
You know the very, very rare, no matter how lovely a Christmas you’ve had, come the 29th of December you’re almost willing the New Year to arrive so you can regain some sense of normal routine?
That’s kind of how I see the end of August/start of September.
A chance to recommence normality post-summer and take a shot at new-year-new-me notions we abandoned long ago.
Do you get what I mean? In August, work gets done, technically, but only in the vaguest sense.
You open your inbox and it’s just a graveyard of out-of-office replies, as it has been for two months.
Even the most energetic go-getters are operating in low power mode. “Let’s pick this up in September,” people say. Or at least every weekly holy.
The social energy is all over the place too. Half your mates are on holiday, sending smug beach photos (I would never, obviously). The other half are bitter and sunburnt from an overpriced staycation in Donegal.
You make spontaneous plans that are entirely dependent on the weather, but no one is brave enough to say it out loud in case they jinx it.
You’re exhausted by BBQs and baffled by what your actual dinner routine was before summer started. Picky bits, again?
And then, like a looming deadline in the back of your mind, there’s September.
Even though I haven’t set foot in a classroom in almost two decades and don’t have kids, September still triggers some deep, primal back-to-school feeling in me.
Something about the first sighting of a cinnamon candle in The Range makes me want a fresh haircut, a new notebook and a ban on weeknight G&Ts.
It’s like my brain thinks I’m resitting my GCSEs.
There’s something weirdly ingrained in us that sees September as the real start of the year.
January is too cold and miserable to genuinely reboot anything: we’re bloated, freezing, skint and depressed.
But September? It has potential.
New routines, new energy, new stationery – it all feels tangible. It’s New Year’s Day for people who drink iced coffees and make lists they never check off.
But before we get to that fresh start, we’re here in the August slump with no clear narrative.
June is all hope and anticipation. July is an endless bank holiday and hazy evenings.
September is neat and routine. But August is like limbo.
You know you’re meant to be living your best life but you’ve also got three birthday parties, a bottomless brunch, two baby showers, a wedding and a family BBQ to attend, and you feel pressured and financially depleted.
You feel pressure to enjoy the last of summer but also kind of fed up with the chore of it all.
It’s the month of soft addictions.
You’ve got one foot in summer, still clinging to your SPF and coconut, margaritas, but the shops are pushing back-to-school lunchboxes and Halloween decorations.
You want to soak up the last of the summer vibes but also secretly can’t wait for moody coves, evenings, and soup season.
Maybe that’s why everyone gets in a strange fog in August, because we don’t quite know how we’re meant to feel.
Are we celebrating the end of something or gearing up for a new beginning?
It is still shorts season or is it time to start wearing black tights and stop shaving our legs?
The truth is, August isn’t there to make sense.
It’s here to be slightly awkward, maybe that’s the beauty of it.
No big resolutions. No big expectations. Just a chance to be a bit laidback, a bit tired, and not know what you’re meant to be doing alongside everyone else doing exactly the same.
Next month though?
Oh, I’m totally getting my life together, 100% (maybe).
