By Pippa Bailey

Copyright newstatesman

One weekend in early September I ventured into my local TK Maxx to conduct my semi-regular routine of picking up a series of random and frankly unnecessary objects that seem bargainous, only to discard them all and leave empty handed. I was appraising some cut-price Le Creuset when, from the next aisle, I overheard a girl’s plaintive plea: “I just want to be uniiiiiique!”

Curious as to what could possibly have provoked such depth of feeling in a small child, I made my way down an aisle of cellophane-wrapped food with real fell-off-the-back-of-a-lorry vibes and found myself in the stationery aisle – of course! The identity crisis-inducing choice of a pencil case for the new school year.

I understood her father’s exasperation, as he pointed out a series of options – unicorns? camouflage? Lilo and Stitch? – to increasingly hysterical nos. But I also understood the little girl. A pencil case is a pencil case, but it’s also a statement of intent for the year ahead; a declaration of self: who you are and where you’re going.

I know that the sort of people who enjoy large gatherings of progressively drunk people – I believe they’re called “parties” – think that the new year begins in January. But we teacher’s pets know that it begins in September. This is a time for reinvention, refocus; to rein in the indulgence of August and reapply yourself to the serious business of building a good life. Long after leaving school, September remains my favourite time of year. I love its sense of possibility, its punishing call to hard work and self-control.

This year I begin the new term with slightly less vigour. It has been a brutal summer, huge chunks of which I cannot remember at all. I withdrew from much of my ordinary life, maintaining the strictly necessary – work, food, sleep, my closest relationships – and leaving aside all else. I instinctively kept my social circle small, seeing only a few select friends. Now, I am slowly and semi-reluctantly re-engaging with the world, re-establishing the routines and habits that were once my normal.

This is difficult, because I still feel so very far from normal – indeed, I am as yet no clearer what kind of normal might exist for me, in a world without my dad. I carry with me everywhere a (perhaps unreasonable) sense of resentment that anyone expects me to do or think or say anything at all. This is not particularly conducive to the productivity and enthusiasm demanded by the new school year.

I have, however, managed to resume some semblance of an exercise routine, which I had – with the exception of cycling to work – uncharacteristically neglected over the past four months. I can tell you from my workout tracking app (God, I’m boring) that before I made my tentative return to the gym, my last visit was on 7 May, the day before Dad was admitted to hospital for the last time. Conventional wisdom is that exercise, with its clear benefits for mental health, might have been a wise activity to keep up, in these long months of grief. But I know the feeling when you don’t want to do something but know when you do it will make you feel better – and this wasn’t it. It felt right to embrace a slower, lazier life; to spare my body the agonies from which I could not protect my mind.

But then September came, with its call to fresh efforts and new beginnings, and I laced up my trainers. Returning to running after a break is always painful: my aerobic fitness does not hang around, waiting to be called on. Where I once spent many a happy Saturday morning running for hours, I now limp my way through 3km. Strength is, thankfully, a less fickle friend: what takes years to build in the gym cannot be lost in months. I feel strangely nervous, ahead of my first visit back – this place where I’ve spent hundreds of hours, now somehow unknown. But I need not have been. I am soon running around the playground again, catching up with friends I’ve not seen all summer. Now I just need a new pencil case.

[Further reading: Nick Clegg saves the internet]