Hooray for July

Every spring, I can’t wait for the school year to end so life can slow down. Then summer vacation starts, and the chaos of the season takes over.

The children are on different schedules, participating in activities that rarely align with workdays. There might not be lunches to pack, but I still struggle to keep up with it all.

All the medical appointments I could possibly push away from the school year are popping up on the calendar, and I can barely remember who’s seeing which doctor which day.

I love being busy. I find great joy in juggling multiple tasks, and I’m grateful for all of them. But there’s something about the abundance of summer that can test my limits. I think it’s because summer presents a façade of rest and relaxation, but really it just brings joyful and abundant busyness that’s packaged differently.

But here comes July. July could be the hero of our summer story.

July is the cherry on the top of the ice cream sundae. It’s summer at its summer-iest. It’s when we will finally welcome the hotter days, when—if we’re doing it right—the children will start complaining about being bored, and when we will realize which popsicle flavors no one likes because that’s all that’s left in the freezer. (Yes, cherry, I’m looking at you. Lots of you.)

July is my favorite month of the year. It happens to be my birth month, but it’s also just so gloriously rich in its summerness.

By July, the graduating is behind us. If anyone had expectations that people would do math workbooks or read a zillion books or learn to crochet, we have shifted those by the time we reach July. When we hit the Fourth of July, we know we are on borrowed time to milk this summer for all its worth. We realign any expectations and just squeeze the joy out of summertime.

August will be a downhill slide to school. We should have time enough to scramble and fit in that required summer reading then.

Let’s enjoy July. Set those goals aside and focus on fun.

This is the time of the summer to drop everything and throw people in the car to go find a snowball.

This is the time to go swimming—because it can’t stay smoky and hazy forever.

This is the time to fit in some spontaneous day trips or afternoon adventures.

And maybe, just maybe, we will fit in a little time for rest. Pope Francis would remind us that rest is important, after all.

“Rest is so necessary for the health of our minds and bodies, and often so difficult to achieve due to the many demands placed on us,” he says. “But rest is also essential for our spiritual health, so that we can hear God’s voice and understand what he asks of us.”

So, let’s find God’s voice in between the sounds of the children complaining they’re bored or the music of the ice cream truck that comes even when no one has any cash on hand.

Bring on the heat. Bring on the humidity. Bring on the fullness of summertime. Let’s enjoy a beautiful July.

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