Hi Reader,

My kids just got back from the cruise with their grandma. And this week, they start another camp.

We planned for a slow summer. They even asked for it themselves, wanting a little more "chill time." And somehow, here we are: busy, busy, busy anyway.

All I want is a few lazy days by the pool or an afternoon that we just stay at the beach til sunset. That's it. And even with an intentional plan, we still aren't getting it.

I keep wondering how this happens. We didn't overschedule on purpose. Nobody sat down and decided to fill July up. It just... is. A camp here because a friend was doing it. A commitment there because it was already paid for. One thing, then another, until "chill summer" was a sentence we said out loud in June and not much else.

I suppose wanting slow isn't the same as protecting it.

Intending a lazy day doesn't make the lazy day happen — something has to actually get cleared out of the way for it, on purpose, probably more than once, probably against some mild resistance from a calendar that fills itself in without asking.

We need to put as much (maybe more?) effort into creating blank spaces into our calendars as filling it.

I don't have this solved yet. I'm not writing you from the other side of it with a tidy fix. I'm writing from right in the middle of busy, still wanting the pool day, still not entirely sure how to clear the space for it.

But maybe that's worth saying out loud too. Wanting slow and having slow take two different kinds of effort, and wanting it is not enough by itself.

(Also — I already started signing up for fall sports this week. Yikes. Getting ready for a hoped for slow summer to slide right into a busy fall.)

Yours in still wanting that pool day,