Back to Normal, Whatever That Means
September always seems to arrive quite suddenly. One minute people are away, work is a little quieter and nobody seems quite sure what day it is, and then the roads are busy again, the emails are coming in and everyone is trying to arrange things for the next three months.
There is something quite nice about getting back to normal. I like the sense of things starting again and I think many of us need some structure to our weeks. Summer can become surprisingly tiring in its own way, particularly when routines have disappeared and every week looks different from the last.
At the same time, going back to normal can make you notice things.
It might be how quickly your diary fills up, or how little time there suddenly seems to be between one thing and the next. Perhaps it is the return of a familiar feeling on Sunday evening, or the realisation that you have started looking forward to Friday by Tuesday. It might simply be that after a few quieter weeks, being constantly available to other people feels much more noticeable than it did before.
We adapt very quickly to the way we live. Something can be exhausting, irritating or simply not particularly good for us and, if we do it for long enough, it becomes ordinary. We stop thinking about it because this is just what Mondays are like, or what work is like, or what happens when we spend time with that particular person.
Having a break in the pattern can change that slightly. It does not necessarily have to be a holiday. Sometimes just having fewer meetings, fewer emails or fewer people around during August creates enough of a change to notice the difference when everything returns.
I think there is something interesting in that difference.
We often concentrate on what we need to get back on top of at this time of year. The inbox needs sorting out, the diary needs organising, work needs attention and routines need putting back in place. We become quite efficient at getting everything moving again without necessarily asking ourselves how we feel about what we are returning to.
Perhaps there was something about the summer that suited you. You might have spent more time outside, seen somebody you rarely see, slept a little longer or simply had fewer demands on you. You might also have found the summer difficult and be enormously relieved that it is over. There is no particular way we are supposed to feel about it.
What interests me more is what becomes noticeable once ordinary life resumes. The colleague who leaves you feeling slightly diminished after every conversation. The friend you keep meaning to see but never quite make time for. The hour in the evening that somehow always ends up being spent on your phone. The fact that you are tired before the week has really begun.
None of these things necessarily need fixing. I think we have become a little too accustomed to treating every observation about ourselves as the beginning of a self improvement project. Sometimes it is useful simply to notice a pattern and wonder about it.
That is often where interesting things begin in therapy too. Not necessarily with a crisis or a huge question about your life, but with something that keeps happening and has started to make you curious. Why do I always feel like this around that person? Why am I agreeing to things I do not want to do? Why did I feel so different when my usual routine disappeared?
Getting back to normal can be comforting. It can also give us a surprisingly clear view of what our normal actually consists of.
And perhaps, before we become completely absorbed in it again, September is quite a good time to have a look.
Hannah Downing
Psychodynamic Psychotherapist
Enter Therapy
