Dear Miriam,
It is better to spend Labor Day conscientiously preparing for the beginning of the year and getting my life in working order, or having one last hurrah of summer? One involves doing laundry and cleaning the floors, the other involves creating laundry and probably getting sand on the floors.
Signed,
September Blues
Dear September,
Summer is so weird. The time we call summer is bookended by Memorial Day and Labor Day, two national holidays which should have a greater significance related to their actual meaning but, in reality for a lot of people, just signal the start and end of nice weather and fun weekends.
On the other hand, the actual season of summer doesn’t quite match up with these dates; schools starts while it is still technically summer and the finality of Labor Day is fabricated, so, you have a lot of leeway.
Please, please find a way to see your “last” weekend of the summer in a more fluid way. Plan to attend to your responsibilities on Sunday, and then do something fun and celebratory on Monday, or view Sunday as your last hurrah, and then Monday as a transition day to get yourself together. Or schedule some time each morning for errands and plan a special outing with friends for each afternoon into evening.
Even if you are planning to go down the shore (or somewhere else out of town), actually cleaning your own house might not be feasible, but you can certainly still spend some time getting organized, making plans, catching up on email and figuring out when the other tasks will get done.
Half the battle of adulting really is setting aside the time to do the things, so set yourself calendar reminders and autopay settings and grocery delivery for Tuesday and pat yourself on the back. Or plan to come back a little earlier on Monday. A couple of hours could go a long way in helping you feel ready for the week and year to come.
Even if you are about to go back to school/work/significant deadline in early September, don’t let the artificiality of this summer end-date stress you out. Rosh Hashanah is late this year. It will still be warm for most, if not all, of September. Plan a beach outing for another Sunday later on in the month when it will be less crowded and more relaxed anyway. Schedule other low-key opportunities that let you enjoy the weather and your friends. That way, even once the year is underway, you’ll have something to look forward to.
Summer is wonderful, but how you spend the final official weekend of beach season doesn’t define the season that’s past or the year to come.
Be well,
Miriam
