Just one more busy season

I don't think most women wake up one day and think, I've lost touch with myself.

I think it sounds much more ordinary than that.

It sounds like realizing the five minutes in your car before you walk into the house have somehow become your favorite part of the day. It sounds like feeling most like yourself before everyone else wakes up and wondering where she disappears to by noon. It sounds like knowing exactly what everyone in your family wants for dinner and having no idea what sounds good to you. It sounds like feeling more alive wandering through a bookstore, an airport, or even a hardware store than you do in the life you worked so hard to build.

None of those things seem particularly important on their own, which is probably why they're so easy to dismiss. Most of us don't stop and think, I've lost touch with myself. We think we're tired. Busy. Overwhelmed. We assume we're in a demanding season of life and that things will feel different once it passes.

That's where "just one more busy season" comes in.

Just one more soccer season. Just one more school year. Just one more launch. Just one more holiday season. Just one more thing to get through and then we'll rest, think about what we want, and figure out why we've felt a little off lately.

The thing about "just one more busy season" is that it always sounds reasonable because most of the time it is. Life is full. The responsibilities are real. The pressure isn't imagined.

What I've started questioning isn't whether women are busy.

It's whether busy has become the explanation for everything.

One year it's soccer season. The next year it's work. Then it's summer, the holidays, aging parents, perimenopause, or something else entirely.

The date changes. The explanation changes.

The feeling doesn't.

Maybe that's because human beings love an explanation. Especially one that relieves us of having to ask harder questions.

Every few years it feels like a new explanation takes center stage. For a while it was burnout. Before that it was stress. Before that it was work-life balance. Lately, it feels like perimenopause.

And before anyone gets mad, I'm not saying perimenopause isn't real. I'm saying it has become one of the few explanations women can offer that nobody argues with.

You're exhausted? Perimenopause. You've gained weight? Perimenopause. You don't feel like yourself? Perimenopause. You have no energy? Perimenopause.

Maybe that's the answer. Maybe it's part of the answer.

What interests me is how quickly the conversation tends to end once an explanation arrives. There. That's why. Case closed.

The problem is that life is rarely that simple.

The woman who says she's exhausted is probably exhausted. The woman who says she doesn't feel like herself may very well be navigating hormonal changes, a demanding schedule, or a season that genuinely requires more from her.

The question isn't whether those things are true.

The question is whether they're the whole story.

Because if the explanation was the whole story, wouldn't some of us feel better by now? Wouldn't the feeling leave when the season ended? Wouldn't it disappear when the schedule got lighter? Wouldn't it stay gone?

Instead, it seems to keep showing up. Different circumstances. Different explanations. Same underlying feeling.

And that's the part I can't stop thinking about. I think we've become incredibly skilled at explaining away things that deserve our attention.

Not because we're avoiding the truth.

Because we're adapting.

Women are exceptionally good at adapting. We adapt to schedules we don't love. We adapt to carrying more than we should. We adapt to putting ourselves last. We adapt to feeling disconnected. Eventually, what once felt temporary starts feeling normal.

That's where I think things get interesting.

Because life has a way of teaching women that endurance is a virtue.

We celebrate the woman who keeps going. The woman who figures it out. The woman who carries more than she should. The woman who says yes when she's exhausted, volunteers when she's stretched thin, and somehow manages to make it all work anyway.

And she deserves credit. That takes strength.

But somewhere along the way, endurance stopped being a skill and started becoming an identity.

When something felt hard, we endured. When something felt off, we endured. When something no longer fit, we endured. Eventually, we stopped asking whether something needed attention and started assuming our job was simply to tolerate it better.

Then something interesting happens.

A woman starts changing.

Maybe she stops volunteering for every responsibility simply because she's capable of handling it. Maybe she starts protecting her time differently. Maybe she realizes she doesn't want every commitment she's been carrying. Maybe she begins paying attention to what energizes her instead of automatically responding to what everyone else needs from her.

And almost immediately, she starts wondering if something is wrong.

Other people often wonder too. She's different than she used to be. Less accommodating. Less willing to carry things that once felt normal. Less interested in performing a role she's quietly outgrown.

But what if nothing is wrong?

What if she's finally paying attention?

I think we've spent so much time celebrating women for how much they can carry that we rarely celebrate what they're finally willing to put down.

It's easy to cheer for someone doing what we did when things got hard. It's harder to cheer for someone choosing differently. It's not because we don't love her or want good things for her. It's because her decision quietly invites us to look at our own lives, our own compromises, and the conversations we've been postponing.

That can be uncomfortable.

Which brings me back to the idea of "just one more busy season."

I don't think most women are waiting for life to calm down. I think they're waiting for permission.

Permission to want something different. Permission to admit that what once worked no longer does. Permission to stop carrying things they've outgrown. Permission to revisit the parts of themselves they've been promising to come back to once life settles down.

The problem is that permission rarely arrives. Life keeps moving. Soccer season ends. Summer ends. The holidays come and go. Work gets busy and then gets busy again. The kids get older.

The next season arrives.

The dates change. The circumstances change. The explanations change.

The feeling doesn't.

And at some point, we have to decide whether we're willing to keep explaining it away or finally get curious about what it's trying to tell us.

Because maybe the goal isn't making it through one more busy season.

Maybe the goal is realizing you've been postponing the same conversation for years.