Apparently, September would like us to sort our lives out

A letter from the Host.

New term. New notebook. New morning routine. New woman? Perhaps not.

There is something slightly bossy about September.

August lets you get away with things. Dinner at an odd hour. Sand permanently somewhere it shouldn't be. Children going to bed vaguely when everyone has had enough. Emails beginning with “Sorry for the delay, I’ve been away.”

Then September arrives. And apparently we need to get a grip. Suddenly everyone is resetting.

The algorithms have decided we need a better morning routine. The shops would like us to buy knitwear despite it still being 22 degrees. Somebody on Instagram has labelled their fridge shelves and another woman appears to have undergone a complete personal transformation because she bought a new diary.

You start innocently enough. Maybe I should get a bit more organised.

Five minutes later you’re considering a 6am wake up, reformer Pilates four times a week, giving up sugar, clearing your wardrobe, meditating before the children wake up and finally becoming someone who knows what is happening with her pension.

September is persuasive like that.

Perhaps it’s leftover back-to-school conditioning. Years of new pencil cases and pristine exercise books have convinced us that the first hint of autumn means we get another go at being good.

And there is something lovely about a fresh start. A new notebook really can make you feel as though your entire life is about to change…for approximately 48 hours.

The problem is that somewhere along the way, the seasonal fresh start became another opportunity to assess ourselves.

Could we be fitter? More organised? More productive? Less tired? Better with money? Better at boundaries? Better mothers, partners, friends, employees, people?

It is quite a lot to ask of a woman who has spent August locating goggles, remembering sun cream, working around childcare, answering messages, booking things, cancelling things and somehow being the only person in the family aware that there is no milk.

Most women are not returning from summer after three months reclining beside the Mediterranean while someone gently fans them with a palm leaf. We have not been on sabbatical. We’ve just been doing life in sandals.

And now, having spent months anticipating what everybody else might need, we are being handed a fresh list of things we might like to improve about ourselves.

There’s an irony in that.

Even the wider conversation seems to be noticing it. In the space of a couple of days, The Guardian went from joking about the great September self-improvement urge - flaxseed and all - to asking whether perhaps we should have a “slow September” instead.

Maybe that’s because we’re getting a little tired of turning every new season into a performance review.

There will always be something seductive about the fantasy version of ourselves….she gets up early. Her inbox is empty. She drinks enough water. She remembers birthdays before Facebook tells her. There is nothing mysterious growing in the vegetable drawer. Her life appears to contain matching storage containers.

I wish her nothing but happiness. But perhaps we don’t need to become her this September.

Perhaps the more interesting question isn’t “How do I improve my life?”

Maybe it’s simply:

What would make life feel a little nicer?

Not transformed. Not optimised. Not worthy of a before-and-after reel. Just nicer.

Maybe it’s buying the good coffee. Leaving one evening completely empty. Putting clean sheets on the bed ridiculously early because you love them. Saying no to something and resisting the urge to submit a 400-word supporting statement explaining why. Wearing the perfume you save for “best” on a completely unremarkable Tuesday. Ordering dinner because you cannot face chopping an onion. Sitting in the car for three extra minutes after you’ve parked because nobody knows you’re there yet.

Tiny things. Almost embarrassingly tiny. But perhaps that’s the point.

At Room to Restore, we talk a lot about Emotional Hospitality - about how much of women’s lives is spent anticipating, noticing and making things easier for everybody else.

Maybe September doesn’t need another enormous promise to ourselves. Maybe it could just contain a little of that same consideration, turned gently back in our direction.

So rather than a reset, here’s something we’re trying:

Once this week, choose the nicer option.

Not the sensible one. Not the productive one. Not the one that will make October-you incredibly grateful.

Just the one that makes present-you think:

Oh. That’s nice.

We think she deserves a little looking after too.

Room to Restore