Summer: Unfiltered, Part 1
Part 1 of the "Summer, Unfiltered" Series!
Somewhere around late April, I got a vision.
You know the one. It comes for all of us. One minute you're scrolling through someone's aesthetically perfect Stanley cup situation, and the next you've mentally redesigned your entire life around a summer that hasn't happened yet.
In my vision, I wake up early. It’s a Saturday morning. The house is quiet. I'm curled up on the couch with a perfectly brewed cup of hot coffee, none of that "I dumped yesterday's cold coffee into today's hot coffee and called it an iced latte" energy I'm usually working with. I meditate. I move my body before 6am voluntarily. I read actual, physical books. I have a loose but functional routine that makes me feel like I'm finally, finally, finally giving that Main Character Energy.
Spoiler: It is now (checks calendar) June 8, aka Summer. And I have not become her.
The Annual Tradition of Lying to Yourself in June
Every year, I make the same deal with myself. Summer will be different. Summer will be the season of change. I'll finally:
Get ahead on things instead of being perpetually behind
Spend more time outside (and actually enjoy it, not just sweat resentfully)
Cook real meals with vegetables I purchased on purpose
Limit screen time (for the kids, sure, but also… quietly… for me)
Have a capsule wardrobe moment, somehow, despite owning seventeen tote bags and zero linen pants
And every year, summer arrives like that first sip of coffee when you forgot to put the carafe back and it sprays all over the counter. Surprising. A little chaotic. Kind of your own fault.
The 5am walks lasted three days. (That's actually a personal record, so I'm choosing to be proud.) The journaling became a voice memo I never transcribed. The vegetables wilted in the crisper drawer like they always do, quietly judging me from the bottom of the fridge.
But Here's What Actually Happened
The kids stayed up too late and so did I. My husband and I sat on the porch and watched the kids play mostly peacefully and just enjoyed the quiet moment. There was the impromptu run to Dunkin to get the kids’ favorite refresher drinks just because it was a hot afternoon and why not? Who am I to say no to iced coffee?! It’s for the core memories, after all. Now that’s giving Main Character Energy!
The past few Saturdays, I drank my coffee on the porch, not at sunrise, but at 8:47am after the first wave of chaos had settled, and it was genuinely one of the better cups I've had. Not because it was fancy. Because I sat still for ten whole minutes and no one needed anything.
The ambitious routine became a loose suggestion. The house was not Pinterest-clean. I was not the version of myself I'd imagined in April.
But I was present. Mostly. Some of the time. More than I expected.
The Glow-Up Is a Lie (And That's Okay)
Here's what I've decided: the summer glow-up isn't a thing you achieve. It's not a before-and-after. It's more like a slow steep. Like the cold brew you set up the night before, trusting that something good is happening even when you can't see it.
You don't wake up transformed in September. But you did get through another summer. You kept the people alive and mostly fed. You found pockets of joy in between the chaos. You had at least one really good cup of coffee, outside, in the quiet. You made the most out of those longer summer nights because even though you had to get up for work, the kids could sleep in.
That's the glow-up. That's all of it.
So if your summer is looking less like a wellness influencer's highlight reel and more like a series of small decisions made on not enough sleep: hi, welcome, pull up a chair. The coffee's on. It might be slightly cold. We're doing our best.
Love you, mean it, friends.
Next up in the series! Part 2: The Things That Are Actually Getting Me Through This Summer. Hint: it involves a playlist, a $2 purchase I'm not sorry about, and the strategic use of blackout curtains.