Midsummer Check In!

There is a line in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that I have always adored. I just spent too long looking for it, which turned into reading huge passages from it, which turned into almost abandoning this post, so I'll paraphrase. Basically, it's about time doing strange things, passing in dollops so entire days and even weeks are gone before you a can blink an eye. That's what's going on this summer. Sometimes I feel like I'm waiting around for bedtime, other times I'm wondering how an entire four-day vacation vanished so quickly, or how I completely missed strawberry picking season for the first time ever.

This has been the easiest summer I've had yet home with my kids. For the first time, they can both talk and walk (so we can do more activities with less facilitation by me) but they also still nap (and the two to three hour period that they nap every afternoon is literally the highlight of my day). I have more free time for myself than ever, and I'm capitalizing on it. I'm blogging here and for other sites. I'm working on my manuscript for the YA novel I've been writing. I'm reading as much as possible, and buying more books than I can keep up with. I'm watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer kind of obsessively. I'm meeting up with friends and going on day trips and buying my first bikini (almost 30 and the heaviest weight I've ever been seemed like a good time to get over that hurdle) and having a damn blast. Seriously.

There are a few problems with this lifestyle: I'm not 20 anymore. If I had been a little more in tune with myself when I was in my twenties, then I could have had a whole freaking decade of this behavior. Maybe I was too jammed up with self conscious bullshit. Maybe I had to get here before I was ready to truly let loose. I should have been writing with less distraction, wearing a bikini on the beach with friends, planning more dates with Ben.  Now that I'm closer to thirty, I bounce back from hangovers more slowly, have to squeeze my hobbies into smaller blocks of time, and while hanging with friends is doable, time for Ben and I is rare and precious. There are so many things I'm dying to do, and to quote another paraphrased saying, I can do anything, but I can't do everything.

My mind is kind of exploding with the all the goodness in my face this summer- amazing books, breakthroughs in my story, fun with my kids, really tasty beers, wonderful friends, hopeful plans for the future. I'm at a point where I need a little discipline (some salads. some exercise.) and a solid long list to organize my thoughts. I need to balance my beers with water. I need to balance my friends time with family time. I need to set some concrete goals, to be a little more proactive. Reactionary living has been really fun, but it's not sustainable long term.

I've been being my own lady pretty ferociously, and it's freeing and a little frightening.  It can feel weird to take a lot time for yourself. It can be awkward to admit that you need to key back into the more boring but more stable parts of your routine.  It is downright scary to reevaluate the plans that you've been blindly hanging on to for several years. But that is part of being your own lady. Living wildly and checking in with how it feels. Making plans so that you're living an intentionally fabulous life, instead of hoping that the life you want blossoms in front of you. 

How is your summer going? Are you diving into any crazy projects, listening to good music, day drinking something delicious that I need to know about? Are you at a point where you need to stop and check in with your goals, or are things singing for you right now? I'd love to hear from you.

Keeping with tradition, I've joined Spotify about seven years late, so here is my summer playlist. A Great Big World is my favorite new band, and the new songs from Sia and Adam Lambert are making my life.