Blue Dress Hot Mess

In three months today, it will be Christmas. Three months ago, it was the 25th of June. Summer lay ahead, fat as a sleeping snake, thick with warmth and travel and possibility. I drove back from a 21st feeling hungover and tired, exhausted by some unknown, unnamed weight: then, I couldn’t recognise it. Now, it is simply the burden of youth. In the light of a grey September day, this highfalutin phrase is less of a monster. It did not succeed in engulfing my summer snake, who has been left to snooze. Instead, the burden seems more manageable now. It is the autumn equinox; the change is visible, the leaves, the chill, the frost we have had and the raging storms. Every contradiction, every clash of summer and autumn has taken place within me, too.

I realised a lot of things on those hungover drives back from 21sts, criss-crossing the English countryside in a dopey-eyed, hazy state made worse by clumps of last night’s mascara and 2 hours’ ‘rest’ in a car whose alarm peeled cruelly every time I moved. I drove up the M40 and belted Adele’s Greatest Hits at the top of my voice, just to keep myself awake: I realised I couldn’t sing. I drove up the A1 and felt nausea swelling in the pit of my stomach: I realised I had a deep-seated craving for banana bread. I drove past Stonehenge: I realised I still wanted him back.

There is the immense beauty in being 21, making the burden considerably less wearisome at times. There is pleasure in lying tummy-down on the grass as I write, my bikini stained by sun cream and my sunglasses reflecting the screen of my laptop like a mirror. Three months ago, the sky was blue; the pool was very clear. Three months away, the sky will be grey, the pool tucked up in her blanket for the winter.

Today is 25th September; it is the birthday of something new. I feel ready. My hair is in a bun; the sky is flushed in a hot pink sunset, as though the harvest moon has said something to make her embarrassed. I am ready to go. It is a whole new experience learning something old when old. I am going to adult ballet; my youth is never over, my childhood no longer a shadow chasing me but an item of clothing I wear. The second-skin of a ballet leotard, pressed so close to my body that we plié as one. I might invest in a tutu, or ask for one for Christmas. How can youth be a burden when adulthood allows you to return to it? I am slipping my ballet shoes onto my feet; it is a Wednesday, and I am going to ballet.

That’s something I haven’t said for the last 8 years. I like the way it sounds. It is the autumn equinox. The world is changing, visibly. I am changing, invisibly. My ballet shoes are my orange leaves. It is a return to youth.