Lessons from the lake

the summer that changed everything

Today’s post was originally written in August 2022, but I really want to share it again for a few reasons:

First — I know that everyone’s summer is wildly different. For some, it looks like beach days and sticky watermelon fingers and naps in air-conditioned rooms with sand still stuck to our toes. This is the dream. This is how summer is often packaged. Yet, as I’ve discovered in my thirtyish years of living, we never know what the summer holds for us. 

Sometimes, it is dreamy and picturesque, with pool days and chunky books and lazy weekends that offer true rest. Other times, it’s a fight to get out of bed and keep moving forward. It’s stress about health and loved ones and job situations. This can feel exceptionally daunting when Euro trips and tan limbs are plastered on our social feeds. We know better than to believe the marketing of summer, yet it can still rattle us or at least make us feel siloed as we suffer through the unexpected. 

I wrote the below piece while suffering throug…