August Is the Sunday of Summer

I've always struggled with August, which makes what happened this week almost embarrassingly obvious in hindsight. I've spent years learning how to Sunday. I've paid attention to what makes them good. I've stopped treating Sunday like the waiting room for Monday. I know when to reset and when to lean in. When I need the gym, love after lock up, yoga, a little God, a lot of music, or absolutely nothing productive at all. And I know that sometimes the right Sunday decision is the spontaneous banger that's going to make Monday harder and absolutely worth it.

I didn't always Sunday this well. I learned.

Then, on August 5th, while I was unknowingly treating the day exactly the way I've trained myself to treat a Sunday, I heard someone say~ August is the Sunday of summer.

Of course it is.

The irony….. I've spent years learning how to Sunday. I just never realized August was asking me to do the exact same thing.

Maybe this is one of those moments where God does what God does when I stop trying to do His job for Him. Or the universe, timing, intuition, whatever makes spirituality feel personal to you. The answer showed up inside something I already knew how to do.

August has historically been hard in our house. My daughter has Down syndrome, and the weeks she has off from school require a lot from our family. There aren't camps that easily work for her, and the team that helps her days run smoothly during the school year gets to have an August too. At the same time, I'm ecstatic that she gets a summer. I want her to be a kid who gets slow mornings, swimming and days that don't need a purpose.

Both are true.

And maybe that's what I've gotten so good at on Sundays that I've never allowed myself to do with August. Sunday doesn't have to pick a lane. It can be spiritual and practical. A reset and a lean in. The gym in the morning and absolutely nothing productive afterward. An early bedtime or a spontaneous night that becomes Monday's problem.

I know Monday is coming. I even prepare for it. But Monday doesn't get Sunday.

And that's the part that's bigger than August.

How often are we physically in one part of our lives while mentally living in the next? The kid is still home, but we're already imagining the empty bedroom. We're on vacation, but we're thinking about the inbox. Something is really good, so instead of being inside it, we're preparing ourselves for the possibility that it won't last. We're still there, but some part of us has already left.

I don't want a life where Monday never comes. I like ambition. I like responsibility. I like having things worth preparing for.

I just don't want tomorrow to keep taking from today.

Maybe that's what August is asking of me this year. Not to make it easier. Not to pretend the hard parts aren't hard. Not even to squeeze every last drop out of summer. Just to stop requiring a season to be one thing before I let myself live inside it.

We can know something is ending without ending it early.

So I'm going to Sunday the shit out of August.

I'll reset when I need to. Live it up when I want to. Pray. Vent. Prepare. Cannon ball. 

Let September come when it comes. And if a spontaneous banger presents itself on the way?

Monday can deal with it.🤘