Hurry up, it’s September

Opinion

For weeks now, my entire personal inbox has been clogged with variations of the same email.

Nine Meal Prep Hacks. Twelve Meal Prep Hacks. The Best No-Cook Lunches. The Best Non-Sandwich Lunches. The Best Non-Sandwich Lunches (That Your Kids Will Love). The Best 30-Minute Meals. The Best Weeknight Meals. The 30 Best 30-Minute Meals For Weeknights.

It must be back-to-school season.

I subscribe to a lot of food publications and newsletters and it surprises me not at all that their seasonal content this time of year is all about saving you time with a wink and a sheet pan. In addition to being the “best” these recipes are also all “quick” and “fast.”

In September, everyone has a place to be, everyone has a schedule to keep.

The rhythms, stresses and pressures of back-to-school season are largely inescapable — even, rather shockingly, if you don’t have kids or aren’t in school yourself. It’s amazing how culturally hardwired it is that back to school means back to reality, owing to that potent mix of marketing and nostalgia.

If summer was a time to slow down, then fall is a time to speed up.

I like the fresh-start promise of September and its routines, but I miss the permission summer offers to catch your breath, to do a little less, to play a little more. I know I’m not the only one based on the sheer number of wistful “it’s the last day of summer” posts that filled my Instagram feed on Labour Day. (Also, it’s not the last day of summer, but OK.)

There’s a distinct “buckle-down-and-get-back-to-the-grind” vibe about September that I resent, especially since, technically, this “back-to-school” business should affect me not at all.

I’m not going “back” to anything. I don’t need to wake up early to pack an elaborate bento box that will come home uneaten. I haven’t had to worry about a first-period pre-calc pop quiz in a great many years. So what am I stressed about?

Also, quick sidebar: what is with the traffic? Where were all of you all summer? What’s going on?

I realize, now, that September is stressful because it has scarcity written all over it. The days are getting shorter at a clip I am uncomfortable with. Calendars are getting fuller; a thought to my parent friends who are dealing with after-school dance and sports schedules.

All those 30-minute meals will help us get more done because there’s more to do. And very few of us are totally exempt from cooking, laundry, obligations and commutes.

It’s a frenzied time, these first few weeks of September, and, anecdotally, everyone I know — parents and non — is either currently sick or exhausted. It’s kind of like the first few weeks of January, in that way. The promise of new beginnings becomes the pressure of new beginnings.

But maybe it doesn’t need to be like this. Maybe September could mean easing in, a true transition month.

We don’t have to do everything at the same time. The trees don’t change colour all at once, either.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca