I’m sitting shivering by the poolside. Wanting to go inside, but wanting to stay for as long as I can to soak in whatever light remains in these last moments of summer.
Maybe you’re feeling it too.
A heaviness.
You’re feeling all the emotions of whatever is going on. Your kids going back to school. The end of summer. The moments you missed. The hot days you never made it into the pool. The times you chose work over the beach, thinking there would be more hot days of summer. The days you were too tired to swim or play.
Suddenly it’s ending. The light is fading. It’s getting darker earlier.
It’s Labor Day, and it’s all over.
Yes, technically summer ends in a few weeks.
But culturally, it’s back-to-school time.
Even though it might be decades since you were last headed back to school, the cultural impact of this moment is embedded in your bones.
Even if your work schedule doesn’t change for the summer, you feel the ending of summer viscerally. Somatically.
Back to work. Back to rules. Back to rhythms. Back to the old routines.
And maybe you’re not ready. You’re hanging on.
The Sun is Fading on Summer
As the sun disappears behind the trees and the light starts to fade, maybe you’re nostalgic for the summer that just passed you by too fast.
You may feel like you didn’t fully take advantage of it, you didn’t fully seize the opportunity. And now it’s gone.
It’s only in retrospect that you realize how many wasted moments you had. You thought you’d have more time, and now it’s over.
And so as the sun fades behind the trees and the light leaves the pool, there’s a very tangible sadness about what else is fading away.
The sun isn’t just fading on the day; it’s fading on the summer.
This is Grief
When you’re feeling all this stuff, it’s important to name what you’re feeling.
This is grief.
Grief is an emotion we don’t often name in our culture, but it’s crucial to name it. To recognize it when it arrives.
There is grief for what you are leaving behind. Grief for the season that was. Grief for the intentions you had that did not manifest. For the opportunities you didn’t seize. For the moments that you didn’t realize.
It’s important to recognize this grief for what it is.
Even that small act of recognizing the grief, of acknowledging its presence, can shift your experience. It can start to dissipate the physical pain. It can break your ruminating thought loops.
Recognizing the grief can shift the state of your being.
Your Grief is Normal
This grief you’re feeling is normal.
The end of summer is a transition, and grief is part of the process of transitions.
There is no transition that comes without grief.
Grief is just is a normal human emotion. An expected human response to change.
Once we realize that grief is normal, we can see that it’s nothing to shy away from.
It’s nothing to hide. It’s nothing to fear. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
How to Navigate Your Grief
If you do nothing else but name the grief and recognize that it’s here, you’ve done a lot.
And then welcome it. Allow it to be here because it is part of your experience.
Sit with it. Notice how your body shifts and settles once you have welcomed this grief. Once you’ve just allowed it to be here.
Not as an intruder into your house, but just as part of the fabric of your experience.
You don’t need to hold onto it. You can just allow it to be with you.
Love it? Hate it? What do you think? Don't hold back...