August Heartache

Living in the liminal spaces

Photo by Lisa Hobbs on Unsplash

Today is the last Monday before the academic year begins, a milestone that we still feel keenly in our home since

James Dietz

is a teacher.

July is behind us, when no two days are exactly the same, when adventure always feels just around the corner. July is celebration and flexibility and visits with friends and afternoons at the splash pad. July is frustration that parenting is a job without a summer break. July is irritation at having to explain, once again, the way I usually do things around the house. July is letting go of my expectations and embracing love as it is offered to me. It’s realizing that my way is not the only way of doing things, that others have something to contribute as well. It’s asking for what I need, choosing to rest when I can, and leaning on friends and family without shame to allow my frantic pace to slow down.

September is just peeking over the horizon, with its hints of cooler weather and the promise of routines that will anchor and nourish us. September is comfort and cooking and crunching the first crop of leaves and acorns in our oak-tree-laden streets. September is frustration at all the events and late nights and extracurriculars that I forgot to put on the calendar. September is loneliness setting in as teachers and friends with school-aged children become less available. September is remembering once again that I can care for myself and my children. It’s choosing to get outside and breathe deeply. It’s baking muffins and reconnecting with play groups and catching up with folks we didn’t see all summer.

But for now, it’s August. August is a liminal space. A bittersweet space. A cherished off-ramp from the summer and a necessary on-ramp to the academic year. August is a time of desperation. It’s a time of clinging to the freedom of July and grasping at the structure of September. August is a time of trying to ride two horses at once. It’s something you see in movies, knowing in your heart you could never do it yourself. And as the two horses begin to pull you in opposite directions, you feel yourself being pulled apart. August leaves me feeling thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.¹

August’s heart craves the solace of July’s freedom or September’s structure, but August usually feels like July’s irritation and September’s loneliness. Here in August, I freeze. Overwhelmed by the perception that I must be in both July and September, I choose neither.

The carefully-cultivated attitudes and habits that served me well over the summer are beginning to outlive their usefulness, and the attitudes and habits that will serve me well in the fall have not woken from their hibernation. In trying to bridge the gap, to live both realities at the same time as I make the transition, I end up living neither. I give in to overwhelm and anxiety, allowing unhelpful and even vicious attitudes and habits to take root through inaction.²

The this tension leaves me feeling out of control:

• Anxiety sitting on my chest, keeping my breathing short and shallow

• Endlessly scrolling, hoping to distract myself from the present moment

• Constantly anticipating “free time”, only to waste it when it finally comes

• Fighting (or not, lol) the urge to text over dramatic play-by-plays of my day to garner sympathy, then regretting it when I’m less overstimulated

• Snapping at my loved ones more quickly and frequently for not “cooperating” (ie, doing exactly what I want exactly when I want it, which is generally to leave me alone and let me do something else without getting distracted by them and their pesky needs)

As I’m writing this post, I’m realizing that what I need to do is hold myself gently this month, to allow room for the growing pains of August. To let go of things that are distracting me from fulfilling my vocation. To step back and regroup, intentionally, so that I can prioritize showing up without burning out.

To that effect, I’m going to take the rest of the month of August “off” from posting as frequently as I normally do in this space. To tidy my home, declutter and donate things I haven’t used in years, and find a new rhythm of doing the laundry with at least one of the girls “helping”.

I wish I could say that I’ll come back in September with a newfound knowledge of how to best function as a full-time carer and as a writer with renewed inspiration and courage. But I’m trying to resist the siren song of optimization culture, so I’m telling myself you upfront that I won’t.

In the meantime, here are a few things I’ll be working on.

My August To-Do List:

• Take one day to work on some Substack-related strategic planning to decide how I will make time for this project during the coming fall semester. And then let it go and stop frantically pulling out my phone every two minutes.

• Pencil recurring events into our family calendar: appointments, prayer times, and play groups. And then let it go, knowing with absolute certainty that plans will change and we will all survive.

• Read how to keep house while drowning and revisit A Mother’s Rule of Life and plan some flexible routines that will help me keep our space functioning in a way that supports our family.

• Finish my “Hang Up and Hang Out” phone box, move my calendar into a paper planner, start making a homemaker binder, and research GPS and digital camera options to reduce my reliance on technology.

• Get James’ suits dry-cleaned, donate clothes we no longer wear, and try to rearrange our storage ever-so-slightly to better suit our needs. And then let it go, acknowledging that I’ll never have the perfect system.

You’ll continue to receive Book Club posts from me on Thursdays, and I’ll plan to be back in September. If you’re active on Notes, you’ll likely continue to see me around, for better or worse, but otherwise, I’ll catch you when I get back. In the meantime, if you’re not yet subscribed, I’d love for you to take a look around and consider staying a while.

What seasons of transition do you encounter regularly? How do you cope with them? Where is an area of your life that you can give yourself permission to slow down and regroup before beginning a new season?

1. Tolkien, of course.

2. Vicious as in vice, not vicious as in the wolf that eats you alive, although the two are not entirely unrelated…