It’s the end of June. For many people, school is ending. Whatever your pattern, it’s likely that if you’re involved in extracurricular activities or summer vacations at all, your patterns will change during the summer months. While this is lovely and can lead to restful times, exciting times at camps, and happy family days together, the summer can also bring stress.
In recent years, I’ve realized that June is another early December. Many years ago, I started to clear out December. It had become a month of intensive family activity, and it didn’t need to be. Yes, Christmas is a special time of the year, one for family activities and heartwarming, soul-warming fun. However, any time of the year can really be special. I moved some activities with family members into other months of the year, and I became conscious of the amount we’d do over December, trying to slow things down. I decided on priorities and made time for those things. Since baking is something I love, I take a week off in early December and bake. I don’t do other things that I don’t enjoy.
I’ve decided that the same thing needs to apply to June. You see, June is the month of anticipation. Where I live, the summer is short and sweet, and we have just a couple of months of glorious sunny weather before the rain returns again. Camping, cabins, and all sorts of outdoor activities are packed into those summer months. Kids’ camps and all sorts of fun occur during that time too. Just like December, the summer months are full of expectation. Just like December, they can become so quickly packed and full that I become afraid of what the summer will bring.
It’s quite possible to become overwhelmed by too much fun and too much goodness. In these waning days of June, take a deep breath. What do you really value in your summer? Make time to do that, and make plans to do some of the extraneous things at another time, or not at all.