The pumpkin spice fog hasn’t even fully settled over the land, and already September is coming in hot with its mile-long to-do list. Forget New Year’s resolutions. This is when the real reset button gets smacked, whether you like it or not.

The emails are breeding. The meetings are multiplying. The medical appointments! A half dozen this month alone, like some sort of fall festival prize I didn’t sign up for. Nothing says back-to-school energy like scheduling lab work at 7:45 a.m.

Work, meanwhile, doesn’t care that you just limped through the humid haze of summer. Nope. There are big meetings, and yes, the phrase “big meeting” always sounds vaguely ominous, like the corporate Hunger Games.

Then there’s the television queue swelling with shiny new shows that promise distraction but instead induce guilt. Do I have to keep up with these too? When did TV start feeling like homework?

And because the universe is cruel, the apple pie question looms. Do I dust off the recipe, find the pie dish, channel domestic goddess vibes or admit that my oven has only been used to reheat pizza all summer?

Meanwhile, the dogs demand their usual belly rubs and chaos, blissfully unaware that my brain is drowning in logistics. Their labor consists of deciding whether to nap on the couch or the floor. I envy their union.

So here we are, the day after Labor Day arguably the hardest day of labor of them all. It’s not a holiday; it’s a reality check. A reminder that the race has begun, whether or not you’ve got the stamina, the planner, or the emotional bandwidth to keep up.

September is here, and it’s not asking. It’s demanding.