THE summer in Northern Ireland – wasn't it great? I wish that kind of stuff could just last forever, said no-one ever.
As well as the ceaseless rain, and the kids driving us mad over the holidays we have our usual summer of cultural celebrations in which we hand ever increasing numbers of our next generation the shackles of our past to carry around.
Eleventh night Bonfires, marches celebrating victories, marches commemorating fallen comrades, protests against marches, celebrations or commemorations, bonfires celebrating religious happenings: it's the not-so-fun merry-go-round we all find ourselves on as citizens on this little unique and wacky corner of the world.
These relentless happenings open a sore and never allow it to heal properly. And I have long given up hope that it will ever actually heal. Our insistence on celebrating our different cultures drives such a wedge between our communities every summer that we spend the rest of the year trying to stitch the wound back up and help it heal, only to do the exact same thing the year after.
And all the while our young people are packing up and getting the hell out of here for somewhere they might make a decent life for themselves.
I've seen friends from all sides, who get along during the year, argue on social media about who's right and who's wrong in all these situations. I've seen countless posts last week about people wanting to emigrate. I saw a friend on Facebook congratulating all the recent A-Level students on their results. And the closing remark was advice to get themselves out of this place. And I agree with her.
This place will never change. The seething hatred for 'the other side' is still there in some quarters. It bubbles beneath the surface and explodes like an oil geezer in the streets surrounding our marches and in the vicinity of bonfires. It stops people believing in this place, it stops investment, it makes sure jobs go elsewhere.
The general age of bonfire builders is 16 and 17. It has been 18 years since the Good Friday Agreement was signed. We have had relative, though sometimes delicate, peace since. The 11th night bonfires across the north were bedecked with Tricolours, GAA paraphernalia, items of Catholic religious importance and images of nationalist politicians.
In Derry last week a bonfire in the Bogside was adorned with Union Jacks, Somme commemoration flags, images of unionist politicians and a poppy wreath. I wondered why the teenage bonfire builders on both sides, who have no direct experience of living through the Troubles here carry such hatred in the hearts for the 'other side'. I can only imagine it's being handed down, like a malevolent family heirloom, by older generations.
I covered a unionist march in Derry last weekend. There were as many people sitting on deckchairs by the side of the road enjoying the carnival atmosphere as there were people rushing past with their heads down trying to get away from it because marching isn't their culture or their thing.
I was there as a reporter. I recorded a section of the march that showed a crowd singing along with a tune the band was playing. One of the lines included the words 'Fenian B*stard' and other such niceties. The video and story went live and I endured five days of unbelievable sectarian abuse and ranting on Twitter and non-stop irate abusive messages of the same ilk from strangers on Facebook.
It displayed to me in technicolored detail how far we still need to go.
For a lot of people, the whole 'sectarian is alive and well' thing doesn't matter to them. They get on with their lives as normal and they can just shake their head at the TV news when it comes on and switch it over. They get on with their lives.
Maybe that's how the rest of us should be too. Perhaps we should just not care, see how that works out for us. Maybe caring too much is my problem. Maybe caring that I want a normal society for my children and yours to grow up in is just a stupid pipe dream to hold for a parent in Northern Ireland and we should give it up now.
Our separate celebrations of 'culture' are killing off any chance our young people have of a normal society.
We owe it to our children not to hand them the trappings of our Troubled past. These events and happenings might have been tradition once upon a time, but then slavery was an embedded tradition in America once. Just because our forefathers did it, does not mean we need to carry on doing what harms and holds us back year after year.
We've come a long, long way, but not nearly long enough.
