What Happened to Summer?

I have found myself wondering lately, what happened to summer?

Not the season itself. Summer still arrives right on time. The tomatoes ripen, the fireflies appear, and the sunlight stays long after dinner. But somewhere along the way, it feels as though summer itself has changed. Or maybe we have.

I remember when summer felt endless.

Three months stretched out before us with no grand plans and no need to fill every moment. Days were measured by the sound of screen doors slamming, the ice cream truck coming down the street, and how long we could stay outside before our parents called us home for dinner. When the only thing we worried about was getting home before the streetlights came on.

We rode bikes until dark. We made forts and played in sprinklers. We caught lightning bugs in mason jars and spent entire afternoons inventing games with whatever happened to be lying around. We used our imaginations to create worlds around us.

There were no elaborate bucket lists. No pressure to make every day magical.

No fear that we might somehow waste the summer. And yet, somehow, those ordinary days became the memories we carried with us.

Today, summer often feels different.

Before school even lets out, calendars begin to fill with camps, vacations, sports, appointments, activities, and endless lists of things we feel we should do before August arrives. We scroll past beautifully curated summer checklists and wonder if we're making enough memories.

But sometimes I wonder if, in our efforts to make summer memorable, we've forgotten what made it memorable in the first place. Because the moments I remember most were never planned.

Fresh watermelon on the back porch.

Wet towels draped over lawn chairs after a long day swimming.

Library books stacked beside the bed for those summer reading programs.

Fresh tomatoes you could eat like an apple.

Bare feet and sticky popsicle fingers.

Those Orange Dreamsicle pops from the ice cream trucks!

Long evenings that seemed to last forever.

Nothing extraordinary. Just life.

Perhaps what made summer special wasn't that every day was exciting. Perhaps it was that summer gave us space.

Space to be bored, to wander, to notice.

Space to dream.

Space to simply be.

Maybe children don't need every minute filled. And maybe adults don't either.

Maybe we don't need a perfectly planned summer with every memory or experience documented.

Maybe the best moments are the ones that happen in between.

The laughter around the dinner table and the sound of cicadas on a warm evening.

Picking flowers just because. Reading one more chapter before bed.

Watching the sun disappear while rocking on the porch.

The ordinary things that somehow feel far less ordinary today.

The things that never make the highlight reel but somehow become the stories we tell years later.

I don't think summer has disappeared. It is still here, quietly waiting for us.

In the garden.

In the backyard.

In long conversations.

In homemade popsicles and dusty feet.

In unhurried evenings.

In ordinary Tuesdays.

Perhaps summer hasn't changed as much as we think. Perhaps we've simply forgotten that some of life's sweetest seasons were never meant to be rushed. Maybe we've forgotten how to be kids ourselves.

And maybe, just maybe, this year we can remember.

Not by doing more, but by leaving a little room for summer to simply be summer.

This summer, I am trying to give my son pieces of the childhood I remember. I am trying to remember what being a kid felt like for me and learning how to imagine again.

Not because I want to recreate the past perfectly. But because I want him to know the joy of running through a sprinkler on a hot afternoon, the excitement of chasing lightning bugs, and the kinds of memories that are made in ordinary moments.

And perhaps, in giving him those things, I am rediscovering them too.

Even though most of us still work all summer long, maybe there is still room in the evenings and weekends to simply be.

To run through the sprinkler with our children.

To make homemade popsicles.

To have Nerf wars in the backyard.

To sit on the porch after dinner.

To remember the things that made summer feel like summer.

Because one day, these ordinary days may be the stories our children tell.

And maybe, just maybe, they will remember summer the way we do.