What's the Point?
I am rubbish with dates from the past, I struggle to remember my own historical reference points and often get chronologies incorrect. The reason for this is that, because they live in a time gone, they therefore become irrelevant to my mind and are cast adrift, like English Fireship's were at the Spanish Amarda. I am, you may not be, aware of the irony that I have spent 25% of my life on earth studying some form of history or another at a level above GCSE and, as part of this study, had to memorise many 'states and dates' as historians can label it. My personal history however is littered with dates I struggle to recall. But strangely over the last week I had a date appear on the calender that with what little spare thinking time I have at present, a memory and a date collided in my mind and pricked a memory that was so very clear and stopped me in my tracks. I shall now explain the significance which dawned on me at the moment I realised.
The Date is the 23rd of August, a nondescript date you may well say and yes, it probably is for most people. It does though happen to be the date of my wife's birthday. It occurred a week or so ago. Birthdays of loved ones, or yourself often provide a nudge to become a little introspective and to ponder 'what was' and 'what is to come'. It does for me certainly, as do most days, but especially birthdays. Inviolate markers in the sand, aren't they?
This year has been one of the supposed 'important' birthdays, a concept I have never truly understood the reason for nor bought into. So speaks the man who neither celebrated his 16th or 18th Birthdays, such events are supposed turning points. This is obviously ridiculous as every day can be a turning point, as can every birthday, but that's not the point I am making here.
So, the 23rd of August is a fairly important date in our family, sadly not as important as the 9th of April, but it runs it close, I've been told. Yet the date I want to also discuss is the 23rd of August 2006. It is a date where I know exactly where I was and what I was doing and indeed, I know exactly which Country I was in too. And here begins the event that links the 23/08/2006 to the 23/08/2011. And why my memory was triggered by the events in 2006.
I was listening to a live album, Pearl Jam in Dublin. I attended the concert. Me and two friends travelled to Dublin, indepdently of each other with different arrivals times. I was first there by a good few hours. We had arranged to meet in a pub in the Temple Bar area of Dublin, which is a fairly world famous part of Dublin. I decided to wait for them in the pub, it seemed the done thing. My friend arrived a few hours after and we had at least, from memory another 4 hrs to wait for our last friend to arrive so we killed a couple of hours in the pub and then sauntered to the hostel accommodation where we did the usual things such as bagsie the best beds in the room and putting the shower stuff in cupboards provided, leaving him with the rubbish bed and no room in any cupboards for his stuff. We then headed back to keep our agreed rendezvous at the pub. It was at this time that we carried on chatting about how things were going, and a general chit chat as it had been a couple of years since we'd met up.
I remember, quite clearly now discussing life and love and master's degrees, as it happened I was involved with at the time. I can still see the PhD out there, taunting me still! One day mate, you'll get what's coming to you. Another story.
So, I remember saying that I had been to a local running club for a bit and was enjoying the running, doing well. Was pretty quick in those days. I remember mentioning a girl whom I had taken a shine too, who also ran. I would clearly state here and now that I didn't join running club for this reason. I had earlier in the year just come out of my first relationship for nearly a decade and was running to fill the time. I clearly remember telling my friend that maybe I liked the woman at running club, not sure I liked her enough to ask her out, but I guess all that changed as my friend encouraged me to be more courageous and so on the 23rd of August, she celebrated her birthday as my wife, of almost 4 years. We have two, amazing children, who were neither considered nor thought possible walking through the streets of Dublin, on that sunny day, and yet only 5 yrs later I see that day as the moment, as an historian could be identified as a trigger point. Whatever it was, five years on I look back and am so glad things have turned out the way they have, all in all. Sometimes the journey hasn't been so easy for two, quite independent people, who in some ways are totally different and in many, so terribly similar. Now, when I come home from work and see my family I wouldn't change it for a thing.
The Date is the 23rd of August, a nondescript date you may well say and yes, it probably is for most people. It does though happen to be the date of my wife's birthday. It occurred a week or so ago. Birthdays of loved ones, or yourself often provide a nudge to become a little introspective and to ponder 'what was' and 'what is to come'. It does for me certainly, as do most days, but especially birthdays. Inviolate markers in the sand, aren't they?
This year has been one of the supposed 'important' birthdays, a concept I have never truly understood the reason for nor bought into. So speaks the man who neither celebrated his 16th or 18th Birthdays, such events are supposed turning points. This is obviously ridiculous as every day can be a turning point, as can every birthday, but that's not the point I am making here.
So, the 23rd of August is a fairly important date in our family, sadly not as important as the 9th of April, but it runs it close, I've been told. Yet the date I want to also discuss is the 23rd of August 2006. It is a date where I know exactly where I was and what I was doing and indeed, I know exactly which Country I was in too. And here begins the event that links the 23/08/2006 to the 23/08/2011. And why my memory was triggered by the events in 2006.
I was listening to a live album, Pearl Jam in Dublin. I attended the concert. Me and two friends travelled to Dublin, indepdently of each other with different arrivals times. I was first there by a good few hours. We had arranged to meet in a pub in the Temple Bar area of Dublin, which is a fairly world famous part of Dublin. I decided to wait for them in the pub, it seemed the done thing. My friend arrived a few hours after and we had at least, from memory another 4 hrs to wait for our last friend to arrive so we killed a couple of hours in the pub and then sauntered to the hostel accommodation where we did the usual things such as bagsie the best beds in the room and putting the shower stuff in cupboards provided, leaving him with the rubbish bed and no room in any cupboards for his stuff. We then headed back to keep our agreed rendezvous at the pub. It was at this time that we carried on chatting about how things were going, and a general chit chat as it had been a couple of years since we'd met up.
I remember, quite clearly now discussing life and love and master's degrees, as it happened I was involved with at the time. I can still see the PhD out there, taunting me still! One day mate, you'll get what's coming to you. Another story.
So, I remember saying that I had been to a local running club for a bit and was enjoying the running, doing well. Was pretty quick in those days. I remember mentioning a girl whom I had taken a shine too, who also ran. I would clearly state here and now that I didn't join running club for this reason. I had earlier in the year just come out of my first relationship for nearly a decade and was running to fill the time. I clearly remember telling my friend that maybe I liked the woman at running club, not sure I liked her enough to ask her out, but I guess all that changed as my friend encouraged me to be more courageous and so on the 23rd of August, she celebrated her birthday as my wife, of almost 4 years. We have two, amazing children, who were neither considered nor thought possible walking through the streets of Dublin, on that sunny day, and yet only 5 yrs later I see that day as the moment, as an historian could be identified as a trigger point. Whatever it was, five years on I look back and am so glad things have turned out the way they have, all in all. Sometimes the journey hasn't been so easy for two, quite independent people, who in some ways are totally different and in many, so terribly similar. Now, when I come home from work and see my family I wouldn't change it for a thing.
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