SIGNIFICANT DATES

As I get older the number of “significant dates” in my life seems to increase astoundingly.

When you’re about 5, the only dates you seem to care about are your own birthday and maybe Christmas day but, the more years that pass and the more people you have known, the more complicated it seems to get to remember all those birthdays of relatives, who might then become breeding relatives and add to the list, or get married to (or at least very involved with) people who have their own significant dates to add to the collection. The years pass and you meet ever more colleagues and friends, all of whom have their own birthdays and anniversaries and whatnot. Before you know it there’s not a month, a week or maybe even a single solitary day when there’s not something going on to distract your attention or give you something that you really should remember.

Once you start to add in all the other dates that you have to remember – weddings to go to, interviews to attend, examinations to do, appointments with your Doctor, Dentist or Hair Stylist it can all start to get really worrying if you are the kind of person who does fret about such things. If you then have to take into consideration all those business meetings that are unavoidable, and those significant national events that we’re expected to ring on our calendars, those World Cups and Royal Splicings etc., then that way madness lies. There are also all those dates of devastating news events like September 11^th, or just those silly ones like April Fool’s day (Be careful what you believe) and Halloween Night (Must remember to have some sweets available) and personal ones like when your holidays are due to begin (Is the passport still valid?) – or all those tragic ones that you don’t want to remember but still resonate deeply in your memories, like bereavements that might only be significant to you and mean nothing to anyone else on a bright and breezy morning.

Some dates remain distinct in the memory despite it no longer being necessary. The birthday of an ex-partner can still resonate on that particular date even though you no longer should really care. Significant birth dates of childhood friends you’ve not seen or heard of in twenty years or more can still ting a little bell in the mind as that day rolls around, or that of any friend you’ve somehow lost touch with. Even those you never really knew at all, but were aware of their birthday for other reasons might still strike a chord; I still remember December 20^th as being the birthday of someone on my college course despite them not having ever really being a personal friend as such (but oh how they did used to go on about it every Autumn term…).

Those birthdays of long lost friends and acquaintances can still bring on a slight twinge of guilt even if I have absolutely no way of knowing where they even are living nowadays. December 23^rd used to be the birthday of someone I wasted a lot of time running around after but lost touch with eons ago. I can’t phone or even send a card as I have no contact details at all any more. Oddly, that very same date has now become personally significant again as one of my sister’s children just had her own first child on that very date, which is another thing that sometimes happens – one quite important date being “trumped” by something of “greater” importance. My birthday got hijacked by a wedding once, and a very good friend’s birthday became another friend’s anniversary, but both were beaten back into the shadows when a member of the family chose that same date to spring into being. July 29^th still reminds me of a long defunct Royal wedding because it was so close to my own birthday and drew much of the attention. January 4^th is the date I started my first ever “proper” job and still gets a minor mental nod even after all these years.

The worst ones I find are the dates when you wake up, look at the calendar and think, “there’s something about today that’s important” but you can’t think of what it is. It might well be one of those significant dates you tucked away in the back of your mind years ago – the date of your driving test, or an exam, or even just a visit to the dentist - but the numbers resonate and leave you skulking around throughout the whole day feeling slightly troubled that you’ve forgotten something terribly important.

Of course there are also the forgotten dates. Everyone can manage to forget an anniversary or a birthday once in a while as many of us are never quite as central to everyone else’s lives as we sometimes like to think we are, but there are so many other dates that I sometimes think I should remember but they’ve managed to somehow slip away from me. The date of that driving test or those once vital exam results, and even the day I first went to college or school, the first day I set eyes on the woman destined to become the beloved. Somehow they’ve managed to slip away unremembered when they deserved to be nurtured.

Today is significant as it is the birthday of one of the parents of my significant other and better half, so it has a certain importance in our household despite being one of those dates that rarely gains much attention as it has so many more glamorous ones surrounding it every year. It does occasionally, like this year, get elevated to “Bank Holiday” status so it’s not one of those “neverdays” like some, but it’s always going to be something of a bridesmaid to its immediate predecessors in the calendar.

Still, that’s really the point, I suppose. Every day is important to someone, somewhere, and every day can also have a deeply sad personal memory for someone else. Maybe, if we take the time to remember this if and when we decide to tell someone to “cheer up and stop being to miserable” on a day when we ourselves have not a care in the world, the world might perhaps be a more understanding and tolerant place.

Have the best day today that you can. If it’s a sad one, you have my sympathies. If it’s a happy one, well done! Embrace the joy of it today, after all there’s another day coming along tomorrow and none of us yet know what it might bring.