Summertime is always the best of what might be.
Charles Bowden
The summer months always seem to be when I come alive and feel zingy – but this year was my first ever single summer for 30 years. I’ve been a serial monogamist all my life – going from boyfriend to boyfriend, but this year I’ve flown solo for the first time in my life.
I’ve also got more time on my hands than I have for years as our split residency arrangement means that I have several days a week when my son is at his dad’s and I need to fill that time meaningfully so I don’t end up mooning around the house missing the smell of my son’s hair and counting down the hours till I see him again. I need to make myself a better, stronger person so that I can be a better mum to him.
At the beginning of June I went to a Fake Fest near to where I live with my friend. We danced, laughed, chatted and drank all day. It was amazing. My confidence was sky high. I was given a wristband as I entered the event and when I woke, slightly second hand the following morning, I didn’t want to cut it off. It represented a good time. So I left it on, until the following week when I attended another event and acquired another one. People started laughing and proffering me scissors.
Over the last three months I’ve collected more, and more, and more. If I see someone in a night club with wristbands to give out I get giddy at the prospect of adding another band to my thickening collection.
So much so that my tatty, raggy, faded wristbands are now half way up my arm. My wrist has become so dense with bands that I’ve started to count down to the final event I’ll attend this summer when I’ll gratefully cut them all off with a due sense of occasion.
To be fair, they have started to get irksome; they get soaked in the shower and I’m getting tired of having to stick them back together when the glue finally succumbs to water or sweat, but I’m determined to keep collecting them as they push me to make memories and enjoy this time flying solo.
the part-time mummy diaries 