There’s a particular kind of light in August. It’s golden, like honey poured slow over everything, catching the tops of trees and warming the evenings just enough to remind you: this is the good part. The final stretch. Summer is fast slipping toward its close, and the mornings whisper it—cooler air, quieter streets, and that faint hum of change coming.
I feel it more this year. Maybe it’s the rhythm of the calendar, or maybe it’s something deeper. The school supplies are stacked on the counter. Having the boys look for their backpacks and calculators, all the while trying on clothes that they have outgrown this summer, making a detailed list of what I have for each of them. At the middle of May they walked out of their Jr. High and now they are going to a new school, almost 3 1/2 We’re counting down the first days, and I realize—we only have five more. Five more first days of school. That number feels too small. Too final.
So I’m trying to soak it in.
The porch talks, the barefoot dinners, the impromptu ice cream runs with friends who’ve known me through every version of myself. That’s the other part of this season—the one that quietly makes it all richer. Friendship.
Friendship in this middle stretch of life looks different than it once did. We don’t meet at playgrounds anymore. We meet over coffee squeezed between meetings, or for dinner after everyone’s been fed at home. Sometimes we show up in yoga pants and don’t even pretend we’ll be working out. Other times, we send a text instead of calling because our souls are tired and texts feel manageable.
And yet—when we do meet, it's magic. We sit down, and it's like we’re all living in different books but reading the same chapter heading: This Part is Hard, Beautiful, Busy, Sacred. One of us is caring for aging parents. One is sending a child to college. One is starting over. One is holding something quiet and painful she hasn’t named out loud yet.
We’re all in different phases, but somehow, it works. Maybe because we’ve stopped needing to match each other’s lives, and we’ve started to just meet each other where we are.
We laugh louder now. We cry easier. We hug tighter. There’s no posturing anymore. We wear our messy buns and our laugh lines proudly, and we speak the truth more quickly than we used to—because we know time isn’t a guarantee, and connection is a gift we no longer take lightly.
So here I am. Watching summer fade, the way it always does—but holding onto the warmth a little tighter this time. I know the days are numbered. I know the seasons are shifting.
But in the middle of it all, there is this:
A soft, strong circle of women who show up.
A porch light left on.
A golden hour that reminds me—this part matters, too.
And I’m soaking it in.
