Late August can be a time of sleepy summer pleasures — and pit-in-the-stomach dread for what’s coming after Labor Day. Here’s how to manage all the feelings.
If January is the Monday of the calendar year, then summer is clearly its weekend — June is its Friday, July its Saturday and August its lazy, delicious, fretful Sunday. Which is why so many of us currently find ourselves in the grips of the “September Scaries.”
Those familiar with the concept of the Sunday Scaries will recognize this feeling. (And yes, the analogy suggests we should call it the August Scaries, but alliteration trumps symmetry here.) It’s a combination of dread, regret and anticipation that accompanies the end of a communal pause and the beginning of a hectic and demanding time.
You can blame it in part on our collective fantasy of summer. Regardless of whether you are still bound to a school schedule, the months when school is out are inexorably associated with pleasure, freedom and spontaneity. “We underestimate how much our scripts and our narratives about the season really affect us,” said Kari Leibowitz, a research psychologist whose forthcoming book, “How To Winter,” examines our preconceptions about the seasons and how to reframe them. “Summer is ice cream cones and being on the beach. Responsibilities and real life are for September.”
August, perhaps more than any other month, is when we give ourselves permission to rest. Emails don’t need to be responded to as quickly; even texts to friends can be returned at a leisurely pace.
“There’s a lot of putting-off that happens in summer,” said Will deFries, whose popular Sunday Scaries Instagram account has been posting memes about that phenomenon since 2014. “There’s a lot of, ‘I’ll worry about that later.’” But by late August, later is very soon, and we can feel the pressures of a busy season bearing down. (Mr. deFries said his account sees an uptick in engagement around Labor Day weekend — a sign that the “scaries” are especially acute this time of year.)
You may also feel like you squandered your summer — you didn’t sip Negronis on a pebbly Italian beach or admire enough fulsome hydrangeas — and now have regrets. August can be really challenging, said Amelia Aldao, a New York City psychologist who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy. “You are expecting your summer or your vacation to be great, and then it’s not. There’s often a mismatch of expectations, which can be a trigger for anxiety.”