I hate the story summer tells, and the way I never seem to belong in it. The time it represents. Those months always seem to come, and linger, for me. They don’t just pass through like any other part of the year; they arrive with a weight, like they know something I don’t, like they’ve already made up their mind about how things will go. And then they sit, blobby as a cane toad in a pot plant …

In fact two of my children were born in January and two of ‘our’ grandchildren were. I feel guilty that it doesn’t bring me joy although they most certainly do. If you’ve ever had a stretch of time that quietly became cursed, a part of the calendar that just doesn’t sit right, or if you don’t feel the feels about a certain time of year which holds up a mirror you’re not always ready to look into, you might understand.

Some of my most difficult seasons have happened during these months. Summers where I felt the ground shift under me, when nothing felt stable, when the things I thought would bring me joy just… didn’t. When change came, but not in the way I’d hoped. When stillness wasn’t peace, but stagnation.

There were summers where the world outside looked golden and glowing, but inside, everything felt gray. I remember waking up every day and not knowing where I stood with myself. Watching other people’s lives bloom while I stayed stuck in a strange kind of waiting room — waiting for clarity, waiting for movement, waiting for myself to come back. Wishing I hadn’t done certain things, made certain choices. And I can’t forget the feel of Januaries as a child when we were at the beach, out of routine. The end of the holidays would accelerate towards us and the anxiety about returning to school and all the unknowns used to be crushing.

January’s a month, in Australia anyway, that is supposed to feel light, free, fun in the sun, maybe even romantic, but often ends up feeling like limbo. Like I’m suspended in a version of life that’s slightly off-beat, slightly out of reach. With grotesquely swollen legs and pain in every joint and sweaty skin and orifices. It used to be a month of sitting under the fan programming to be thoroughly prepared for the rest of the year, not just teaching-wise, and I used to travel—chase the winter— in the long summer holidays to escape that feeling, but the money and the freedom to do that have run out as has the energy to teach

Even the good things sometimes carry a strange hollowness in summer. Moments I had looked forward to for years somehow arrived empty. Or too late. Or in the wrong shape. Or were ruined by he who we don’t mention (to whom I also got married in summer).

And maybe that’s what makes it hardest. Summer has always been painted as a season of beginnings, of becoming, of cricket, of wide-open skies. But for me, it’s often felt like an echo chamber — of the things I didn’t get, of the versions of me I haven’t figured out how to grow into yet. And here, in Ipswich, of crippling humidity. That’s definitely not cricket.

But still, every year, I try. I mark the days. I hold my breath. I keep paddling. I hope that maybe this summer will be gentler than the last. And I attempt to write. Writing is like clearing a path uphill through my mind to a broader and clearer view of things.