This week was busy…really busy. Softball and basketball camp for one kiddo, agility camp for another, and middle school football practice just beginning to kick off. There was also regular church, a friend’s VBS, speech therapy, and then of course, work. Every direction there was somewhere to be, something to pack, and someone to drop off or pick up.
Somewhere in the middle of all that motion (maybe it was on Tuesday when I felt like I met myself on the road), I was thinking life feels a little too fast right now. Not in a way that needs everything canceled or pulled back, but in a way that made me notice how easily summer can turn into another packed season instead of something softer.
I’ve been thinking about my childhood summers a lot lately. A ’90s summer didn’t need much explaining. It just was. It was bare feet on hot pavement and screen doors slamming shut behind you. It sounded like laughter echoing down the road and always smelt of fresh cut grass.
It was long days that didn’t feel scheduled. You just went outside in the morning and somehow the whole day unfolded from there.
Friends showed up without a playdate being arranged days in advance. It was playing in the rain without a second thought, riding bikes until the sun set, drinking from the water hose like it was the best thing you’d ever tasted, and coming home only when hunger or darkness finally pulled you back inside.
It was chasing lightning bugs until jars glowed faintly and staying out just a little too late because nobody was watching the clock closely anyway. We didn’t have phones to tell us the time. Somewhere in all of that simple freedom, summer felt different. Slower. Like it belonged to us instead of being managed by us. That kind of summer didn’t feel curated. It just happened.
We didn’t realize it at the time, but those long summer days were shaping something in us.
My wooden play set that my dad worked so hard to build meant everything. The trampoline, the scraped knees, the sun-soaked hours that seemed endless…,it all felt like a dream I didn’t know I was living. Teaching us how to be still without even knowing that’s what it was. And now, as a mom, I find myself wanting to recreate pieces of that…not perfectly and not exactly the same, but in spirit.
So this summer I’ve been leaning toward something simpler: days spent outside until the sun starts to set and nobody is in a hurry to come in. Playing in the rain without rushing inside at the first drop, letting the storm feel like part of the fun instead of something to avoid. Clothes soaked, hair dripping, laughter echoing like it doesn’t belong inside four walls.
Friends coming over without everything needing to be planned down to the minute. Snacks that are simple, floors that are not always clean, laughter that fills the house anyway. Walking around town with no real destination. Just movement, conversation, and the kind of time that doesn’t feel like it’s being measured. We may even try water hoses instead of bottled perfection. Bedtime is loosening a bit. Not without structure, but saving space for firefly nights, extra stories, and the “just a little longer” that turns into the kind of memories nobody plans on a calendar.
Somewhere along the way, childhood started getting scheduled. Summer started getting managed…this season feels like an attempt to loosen that grip again.
Not perfect. Not polished. Just simple. Something closer to what it used to be.
