Summer is officially already half over!!
Thinking about this makes me inwardly groan, leaving me with an almost panicked inner beast attacking me. It’s scratching and clawing like a caged animal in desperate need of escape. I breathe deep and attempt to smile, try remain calm on the exterior, but inside there is a million thoughts and lists and grievances flying around out-of-control.
Try as I might, I cannot hold time within the grasp of my closed hand. Minutes seep though my fingers like grains of sand, falling at my feet in bits of tiny moments and memories that just continue to spill forth and accumulate at my feet. My toes slowly become buried in the coolness of days past, while the sun continues to beat it’s sweltering rays upon my forehead and sun kissed shoulders, leaving a hot, heavy uncomfortableness within me.
We waded slowly through the winter season… and actually, truth-be-told, winter also flew by much quicker than I ever anticipated. I didn’t think April and May would ever arrive… and then they did, and then they were gone in a blink, and apparently took June right along with them.
Try as I might, I cannot hold time within the grasp of my closed hand. Minutes seep though my fingers like grains of sand, falling at my feet in bits of tiny moments and memories that just continue to spill forth and accumulate at my feet. My toes slowly become buried in the coolness of days past, while the sun continues to beat it’s sweltering rays upon my forehead and sun kissed shoulders, leaving a hot, heavy uncomfortableness within me.
We waded slowly through the winter season… and actually, truth-be-told, winter also flew by much quicker than I ever anticipated. I didn’t think April and May would ever arrive… and then they did, and then they were gone in a blink, and apparently took June right along with them.
The calendar pages continue to flip faster and faster, and I have no idea how I got to this point. How did my life reach this moment of epic speed in which I feel I am completely out-of-control of right now? And what in the world do I do to attempt to tame it, to slow it down, to control its out-of-controlness?
Oh I diligently try to remain slow, under-booked, and overly-selfish with my time and my family’s commitments in the summer. We purposely don’t do summer rec, summer ball, summer sports of any kind. We purposely don’t commit to anything other than ourselves and our family during these few precious weeks of summer. In our attempt to grasp and hold and manage this blink of time every year, we somehow end up causing the clock to just speed up faster and faster with every passing day. Then, on a day like to today, I stop and really think about it, and it all crashes around on me.
Oh I diligently try to remain slow, under-booked, and overly-selfish with my time and my family’s commitments in the summer. We purposely don’t do summer rec, summer ball, summer sports of any kind. We purposely don’t commit to anything other than ourselves and our family during these few precious weeks of summer. In our attempt to grasp and hold and manage this blink of time every year, we somehow end up causing the clock to just speed up faster and faster with every passing day. Then, on a day like to today, I stop and really think about it, and it all crashes around on me.
The dog is dying, my son is graduating from college, my family is planning a vacation (like my ENTIRE family is going on a vacation TOGETHER), my friends are planning Saturday night potluck menus, my church job is teetering right on the still-quiet edge of crazy change, my cake job is a balancing act of available time and commitment obligations (which include weekends at the lake), and I’m giving large chunks of my time and mental stamina this summer to half marathon training…
Oh my gosh… just stop already… slow down… let me breathe… let me rest… let me relax… let me just be filled without having to eek or drip anything out in return. But that isn’t a realistic reality I realize. The ebb and flow of my internal filling and my emptying has never been balanced, no matter how aware I try remain about it.
I used to spend every single day with my inner tank empty to the bare bottom, and have since spent the last two years diligently trying to re-fill me, care for me a little more… and in my diligence to remain aware, to remain a little more full, I know I’m still fighting to open my hands to release this stupid perfection complex I carry so closely to my soul. I want to control, I want to dictate, I want to choose, I want to fix, I want to monitor, I want to know, I want to achieve.
I’ve come to realize, and have told myself, that summer is my season to be intentionally filled. The family time, the camper, the lake, the coffee on the deck, the books, the sunshine, the cool breezes after dark, the campfires, the water, the sunsets, the friendships, the photos, the memories… And I guess it’s not that I’m NOT being filled this summer, because I am - or at least I am diligently doing all of those things I’ve told myself SHOULD be filling me… but I’m just yet again at a loss with how FAST this intentional time of slow and rest is slipping by. This same thing happened to me last summer…
Perhaps I need to stop raising the bar of relaxation expectations, stop trying to measure and micromanage my level of “filling” and “filled” and “rest” and “relaxation.” I think I’ve somehow entered into a state of trying to plan and accomplish and control my inner state of calm and rest, which is actually just causing me more stress and angst.
No, I don’t want it to be August in a matter of days. No, I don’t want school to be starting in a matter of weeks. No, I don’t want fall schedules and decor and temperatures to return just yet. I want to hang out in the heat and the slightly less chaotic just a little longer… but wait, I CAN. This isn’t the LAST weekend, the LAST day I’ll have at the lake, the LAST hurray of the season before packing it all up and driving away.
I need to open my hand and just let it all go. I need to stop looking over my shoulder and grieving all the time that’s already gone. I need to keep looking forward and celebrating the time that is still left, still to come, still to enjoy. I need to just stop and reflect, scroll through the hundreds of photos I’ve already captured, read through the camping logs I’ve already filled out, look at the running logs I’ve already ticked off my training schedule. Remember and laugh and love over the already moments this summer has granted me.
I need to simply continue teetering on this tricky balance beam between intentionally seeking slowness, purposely honoring family time, and simply surviving the daily commitments of day-to-day life between jobs, hobbies, dreams, goals, hopes, and the ordinary mundane.
Yes, let’s continue to try live life fully, for we only get this one life, this one chance, this one right-now. Let’s work to balance it all well. Let’s love both ourselves and others equally and passionately. And let’s ultimately give thanks to our amazing God for these moments, these memories, these days of summer life.
Stop, breathe, remember yesterday, anticipate tomorrow, worship fully in the moment, release the perfectionism no one will ever be able to accomplish. Let’s try open our palms and joyfully let the sands of time continue to slip through our fingers. Stop trying to catch them, hold them, micromanage them… simply enjoy them in their greatness and grander that they were intended to actually be.
Let’s let ourselves be filled, and allow ourselves the grace to also be emptied all over again when needed. Let’s try simply to enjoy the whole process, with all the feels of the highs and the lows that come with the joys and sorrows, the laughter and the struggle, as we fill our days, re-fill our inner tanks, and turn the calendar and planner pages for just a few more glorious weeks of this wonderful season called summer…
Oh my gosh… just stop already… slow down… let me breathe… let me rest… let me relax… let me just be filled without having to eek or drip anything out in return. But that isn’t a realistic reality I realize. The ebb and flow of my internal filling and my emptying has never been balanced, no matter how aware I try remain about it.
I used to spend every single day with my inner tank empty to the bare bottom, and have since spent the last two years diligently trying to re-fill me, care for me a little more… and in my diligence to remain aware, to remain a little more full, I know I’m still fighting to open my hands to release this stupid perfection complex I carry so closely to my soul. I want to control, I want to dictate, I want to choose, I want to fix, I want to monitor, I want to know, I want to achieve.
I’ve come to realize, and have told myself, that summer is my season to be intentionally filled. The family time, the camper, the lake, the coffee on the deck, the books, the sunshine, the cool breezes after dark, the campfires, the water, the sunsets, the friendships, the photos, the memories… And I guess it’s not that I’m NOT being filled this summer, because I am - or at least I am diligently doing all of those things I’ve told myself SHOULD be filling me… but I’m just yet again at a loss with how FAST this intentional time of slow and rest is slipping by. This same thing happened to me last summer…
Perhaps I need to stop raising the bar of relaxation expectations, stop trying to measure and micromanage my level of “filling” and “filled” and “rest” and “relaxation.” I think I’ve somehow entered into a state of trying to plan and accomplish and control my inner state of calm and rest, which is actually just causing me more stress and angst.
No, I don’t want it to be August in a matter of days. No, I don’t want school to be starting in a matter of weeks. No, I don’t want fall schedules and decor and temperatures to return just yet. I want to hang out in the heat and the slightly less chaotic just a little longer… but wait, I CAN. This isn’t the LAST weekend, the LAST day I’ll have at the lake, the LAST hurray of the season before packing it all up and driving away.
I need to open my hand and just let it all go. I need to stop looking over my shoulder and grieving all the time that’s already gone. I need to keep looking forward and celebrating the time that is still left, still to come, still to enjoy. I need to just stop and reflect, scroll through the hundreds of photos I’ve already captured, read through the camping logs I’ve already filled out, look at the running logs I’ve already ticked off my training schedule. Remember and laugh and love over the already moments this summer has granted me.
I need to simply continue teetering on this tricky balance beam between intentionally seeking slowness, purposely honoring family time, and simply surviving the daily commitments of day-to-day life between jobs, hobbies, dreams, goals, hopes, and the ordinary mundane.
Yes, let’s continue to try live life fully, for we only get this one life, this one chance, this one right-now. Let’s work to balance it all well. Let’s love both ourselves and others equally and passionately. And let’s ultimately give thanks to our amazing God for these moments, these memories, these days of summer life.
Stop, breathe, remember yesterday, anticipate tomorrow, worship fully in the moment, release the perfectionism no one will ever be able to accomplish. Let’s try open our palms and joyfully let the sands of time continue to slip through our fingers. Stop trying to catch them, hold them, micromanage them… simply enjoy them in their greatness and grander that they were intended to actually be.
Let’s let ourselves be filled, and allow ourselves the grace to also be emptied all over again when needed. Let’s try simply to enjoy the whole process, with all the feels of the highs and the lows that come with the joys and sorrows, the laughter and the struggle, as we fill our days, re-fill our inner tanks, and turn the calendar and planner pages for just a few more glorious weeks of this wonderful season called summer…
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