☀️ Summer Doesn’t Hit the Same with a 9 to 5

Grieving the freedom—and finding new rituals

Honestly, I’ve always had a complicated relationship with summer.

I’ve lived in beautiful, lush, green places, sure—but mostly I grew up in hot, dry climates where the sun didn’t feel like freedom. It felt brutal.

I was in marching band through most of  high school and a semester of college, which meant long rehearsals under the sun while my friends were off chasing their own lazy-day adventures.

And depending on which parent I was living with that year, the quality of my summer changed dramatically. My level of freedom always felt like it was being negotiated.

Still, there were golden moments.

Random beach trips long before I ever moved to San Diego. Hikes to hidden waterfalls in wilderness preserves. Sleeping all day so I could spend all night exploring with my friends once the air finally cooled. Horseback rides through the desert in daisy dukes and a bikini top, because that was the only way to survive a Joshua Tree summer. Rock climbing and crawling through caves in the national park, desperately chasing shade. Long road trips to new places for a trendy music festival.

Summer didn’t always feel simple—but when it was good, it was so good.

🌞 What Summer Used to Feel Like

My favorite summers were the ones where I spent as little time at home as possible.
I’d crash on a friend’s floor or couch for days at a time, slipping in and out of houses like we were all just living in one big communal blur. We’d wake up and jump straight into someone’s pool before we’d even thought about breakfast. Nothing was ever planned. That was kind of the magic.

Smartphones weren’t really a thing yet. If someone had one, it was brand new and way too expensive. I had an old Nokia brick phone for as long as I could remember, no texting plan, and no one liked to make actual phone calls. So most of the time, we just… found each other. There were no group chats. No long threads deciding what to do. We all just ended up at someone’s house, someone’s car, someone’s backyard, and made it up as we went.

We vibed. We figured it out.
And somehow, that was always enough.

There was freedom in that looseness. In the not-knowing.
The days stretched out in all directions, and time didn’t feel like something we owed anyone.

🕰️ What Summer Feels Like Now

Summer now is just… another day, except I’m either not sleeping because of the unrelenting heat, or I’m agonizing over my electric bill after finally giving in and setting up my portable AC so my pets can be comfortable.

I usually choose to work in-office during the summer, mostly to take advantage of the free air conditioning. The trade-off? I’m stuck at a workstation on the sixth floor of a high-rise with genuinely beautiful views—views that honestly feel like a personal insult when there’s a perfect summer day happening just outside the window.

Between heat exhaustion and work exhaustion, it’s hard to find the motivation to do anything.

Weekends are less “music festivals and impromptu trips to the beach” and more “laundry, cleaning, meal prepping, washing the dog.” All the things I couldn’t get to during the week. The fun gets replaced by function. Rest turns into chores.

And the worst part? The tourists.

Not only am I stuck doing everyday stuff—I’m doing it while navigating around people who a) aren’t from San Diego and appear to be perpetually lost and b) think they’re entitled to act however they want because they’re on vacation.
Don’t even get me started on Comic-Con weekend. I used to love going. Now I plan my entire week around avoiding it so I don’t have to leave the house and endure the chaos.

🌻 Making Room for Small Summer Joys

This summer, I’m determined to reignite a little joy.
To carve out space for some of what got lost in the unrelenting weight of responsibility that seems to have shown up uninvited just because I turned 30.

The adventures might be smaller now—more local, more practical—but I live in a place with no shortage of options. So I’m giving myself permission to chase the ones that feel good, even if they’re just little glimmers of what summer used to be.

I plan on going to the beach more. Even if it’s just catching the last stretch of sunset after work.
Early morning hikes before the heat settles in, so I still have the rest of the day for grown-up shit.
More concerts—big, small, classical, chaotic. A night with the symphony at The Shell. A single-day pass to a local music festival. A dive bar gig on a random Tuesday.

More time in parks. More museum wandering. More choosing what feels good today instead of drowning in the never-ending to-do list of adulthood.

There’s still room for joy.
And this summer, I’m choosing to find it.

🌅 Still Chasing That Summer Feeling

Summers are different now—clearly.

Friends have different schedules, different lives, and in my case, many of the people who mean the most to me don’t even live in the same city or even state anymore.

Keeping my job is obviously important. I can’t just drop everything and go off-grid for three months (as much as I might fantasize about it). But I can work around the time I’ve dedicated to that life to find little glimmers of the summers I used to know.

A walk at golden hour. A pool day. A spontaneous concert. A good book in the shade. Volunteering an afternoon at a horse rescue.

The magic’s not gone—it’s just quieter. But it’s still there if I’m willing to look for it.

If you want to share, I’d love to know what summer feels like for you now.
What memories do you carry? And how do you bring that energy back, even just for a moment?

This week’s mantra:
“Even when I’m busy, I can still find the light.”