In which I overuse the word trite, and also attempt to catalogue time, and then end up talking about people instead.

I had this very emotional post about adding ginger to biscuits written out, but now those biscuits have been eaten and the ginger seems trivial and the emotion seems trite. Besides, while we were eating them at Geek Corner yesterday, I was reminded of the tradition of end-of-year blogging, which is as important a post as it is overly long. So, having neglected to tell you about Secret Vegetarian Festive Dinner, and having blurred over the entirety of November, and having not mentioned the dozens of small gatherings, protests, meals, and such that have been taking up my time recently, I suppose I owe myself this much. I should try to stand far back enough from Twenty-Ten to understand what it was, ascribe some almost empty and arbitrary meaning to the nonsensical plot arcs of life. I like that metaphor, though, turning today into the season finale. Tomorrow, a new arc starts, although I think my subplot will stay largely the same. Can Saoirse stay in school? Other people's plotlines are perhaps more interesting- although in many cases that is not because they are superhappyfuntimes- but mine has room for character development, and the big bad being June exams is something I can handle.

I guess the first half of this year's plotline was more like a fun and wacky spin-off. Bookmarks! A hilarious ensemble cast, a work-place based sitcom. That's where I'm writing this now, and you know what? It's a subplot I enjoy. The thing is that I really, genuinely, and despite myself, love the goddamn customers, as well as my colleagues and the books and the tea. And so what should have been stressful and difficult- dropping out of school and working almost-full-time was instead enriching and enjoyable and very quickly ordinary. I thought I was taking time off from school so that I wouldn't get kicked out, but I needed the break, needed to not be in the strange spiralling curriculum for a while.

And then it was September, before I knew it, and hello, a return to high school drama. Cliques and teachers and essays and the awkward of me. The year I invaded turned out to be built of darlings and sweethearts, of course, and I can't help but love the whole learning thing. Still, I seem to be bad at showing up to school and doing the whole normal student thing, and if it wasn't for how universally incredible my friends are, how insistent they are in waiting in the cold or even just tweeting at me angrily, I might be one hell of a lot worse off. It occurs to me that I will not entirely be able to claim any A-Levels I get as my own. They will be, more than most, the outcome of how crazily supportive the people I know are. There are people I owe. There are people I should thank. There are people I should bake more for.

Which is the point- not the baking, but the love- of it all. The passing of time, and school, and work, and history essays aside, at the end of every year I stand having had it proven to me once again that the thing that gets you through the doldrums and the dire depths of perseverance are people. People you love, people who care about you, people who are kind of jerks but hey, people who are cute customers who keep coming in looking for Terry Eagleton, people who aren't, people who are impressive or inspiring or hilarious or something else. I don't know: it all sounds soppy and sentimental, some trite recital of how love saves you, but that's not what I mean. We care about each other, always, and the people you love come to define you, even the absent ones. And bad things happen to them, and bad things happen to you, because that is what happens: bad things, sometimes. So you go hand in hand through it, you keep on surviving and then, afterwards, you tell each other dumb jokes about it and that is very, very, very important.

Oh man, I am bad at writing posts that have a point.

Not November

So let's not talk about November- not talk about getting over DF, not talk about how it is three years since my dad died now, not talk about the protests and the work and the work and the work, not talk about what makes it better, not talk about what gets us all through the strange and difficult day-to-day, not talk about love- let's talk about food and books and music and blogs and food again because that is more interesting than blogs. And let's do it tomorrow instead of today, because today there are essays to write.

And maybe the day after tomorrow I will be able to get my head around November.