Hanging on to Summer

As my social media feeds start to fill with pictures of kids going back to school and shots of pumpkin bread and lattes, I have decided to hang on to summer just a little longer.

Summer is our outdoor, fun-in-the-sun season of warmth, growth, and connection! And I am not quite ready to trade that in for even the coziest of cozy sweaters.

After what felt like an eternity of staying home with only my littles and my husband coming and going in his normal routine, I'm holding on to the opportunities we have had this summer for connection, the opportunities to invite people over and to get out and do a few more things.

I'm not quite ready to let go of time for beach trips and camping and family reunions. Not ready to leave behind sprinklers and popsicles, swimming lessons and grilling. I still want to hang on to the fireflies, shooting stars, and fireworks.

This summer we have enjoyed evenings that linger in the warmth of the setting sun and time for slow, deep conversations that build new connections and deepen existing ones. I have been so grateful for those moments that come from pulling back a bit on the busy and those moments where we let go of our pasts and step into a new version of ourselves.

And I want to hold on to that as long as I can right now.

Summer provides such great opportunities for connection. In the warmth of summer we go outside, we work, we talk to our neighbors, we linger on the porch into the night. When we have breaks from work and school, we take trips and explore, we stay up late, we try something new. When the sun stays up later, we invite more people over and we go more places. In short, we open up. We allow new opportunities and experiences and people into our lives in ways that we don't at other times.

As we connect with other people in real and meaningful ways, we start to see the world in terms of WE rather than in terms of ME. We open our hearts and our minds to the stories that make up another person’s world. And in doing so, we open our hearts and minds to pieces of ourselves that we didn’t know were there; things long forgotten and things yet to be. Connections bind us to friends and family and help us see ourselves more clearly.

So here’s to summer! Here’s to all the memories still to be made and the connections still to deepen. Here’s to the warmth and the growth and the connection!

And here's to holding on to that for as long as I can!