What Summer Looks Like When You’re Starting Over

This weekend my phone filled up with fireworks, lake houses, and matching family t-shirts. And I know that somewhere out there, another woman scrolled through all of it and thought, that used to be my life.

Nobody warns you about summer when you're starting over. Winter is easy to hide in. Everybody's inside anyway. But summer is loud. Summer shows up demanding potato salad and group photos and a certain kind of happy. And when your life is in the middle of changing, all that sunshine can feel like it's pointing straight at everything that's different now.

Maybe this is your first summer in a new town. The first one without your person. The first one since the kids stopped coming home. The first one where the old traditions don't fit and the new ones don't exist yet.

Underneath all of it sits the question you'd only whisper. Am I allowed to enjoy any of this before my life is put back together?

Here's what I've learned: joy doesn't wait for the finished version of you. It never has.

This post comes with a video too — because some things are easier to say out loud.

That Ache Is Grief. It's Just Slathered in Sunscreen.

Let me tell you about my vacation photos. Or really, about the ones that don't exist.

John and I had tickets to watch the Macy's fireworks this year, seats in the ADA section while he recovers from his motorcycle accident. We'd been excited about it for ages. The logistics were going to be tricky, so we did a trial run a few days early. Could we handle the walking, the crowds, the whole megillah?

I came prepared. The heat and I are not friends, and I know it. So I packed water, cooling cloths, and a little pink handheld fan. We moved slowly. We did everything right.

And it still wasn't enough. My body called the game before we even reached the pier. We ended up in an Uber heading back to the car, and those fantastic tickets went unused.

Fifty years ago this month, I stood in nearly the same spot in a crowd of millions, watching the tall ships at Op Sail. Nothing about it felt hard. This year I couldn't make it through a practice run. I was heartbroken. And I'll be real with you, I was angry too. We both were. We both still are.

So when you're scrolling past everyone's beach week and feeling that pull in your chest, hear me. You're not jealous of their vacation. Not really. You're grieving your old summers. The ones that came with your old life. Or, in my case, my old body.

That ache is grief. It doesn't care that it's July, and it doesn't take holidays off. When it shows up between the hot dogs and the sparklers, you are not doing summer wrong. You're carrying something real through a season that pretends everything is light.

Name it for what it is. I miss what was. Say it out loud if you need to. Naming it takes the sting out faster than pretending ever will.

Joy Comes in the Ten-Minute Size

Here's the second thing, and this one changed summers for me. Joy in a season like this doesn't arrive the way it used to. It's not the two-week vacation. It's not the big barbecue with three kinds of pie and kids running everywhere. Right now, joy comes in the ten-minute size.

Iced tea in the garden before the day gets going. One perfect tomato from the farmers market. Cold watermelon eaten standing over the sink, because who exactly is going to stop you?

We treat those little moments like consolation prizes, as if the real joy is out there somewhere and this is what we get instead. But small moments are not the runner-up prize. They're proof of life. Evidence that you are still in there. Still able to taste things, notice things, feel the sun on your arms.

You don't need the lake house to have a summer. You need ten minutes and the willingness to let them count.

If you're reading this in the middle of your own starting-over season and you're not quite sure which part you're in, that's exactly what our free reflection Where Are You In Your Becoming? was made for. Eight questions, about two minutes, no wrong answers. It meets you where you actually are and points you toward what might help next.

A Good Moment Is Not a Betrayal

Which brings me to the part nobody says out loud. Sometimes we don't skip the good moments because we're too sad. We skip them because feeling good feels wrong.

I spent years as a therapist sitting with women through their hardest chapters, and I heard some version of this in every single one of those rooms. If I laugh, does that mean I'm over it? If I have one good day, does that mean it didn't matter?

Laughing at something in July does not erase what happened in March. Enjoying your coffee, or in my case my tea, does not mean you've stopped taking your life seriously. It means you are alive inside it. Both things get to be true at the same time. You can miss what was and still let one good moment land.

That's not moving on. That's moving with.

Small Ways to Claim a Summer When You're Starting Over

This probably isn't the summer of the big vacation. So let it be the summer of something else. The folding chair in the backyard. The library book you read in it. A tiny new tradition that belongs only to this chapter, even if it's Tuesday tomatoes or Friday sprinkler-watching. And the fireworks watched from the kitchen window with a glass of iced tea.

That last one was mine this year. Not the summer I ordered. But it's the one that showed up, and I'm learning to stop arguing with it.

If the bigger season is on your mind too, I've written about building what's next without a blueprint and about the fear that shows up when you're starting over after 50. This post is the other half of those conversations. Those were about moving forward. This one is about being allowed to stand still and let a moment be good.

(You can find that second one here: overcoming anxiety when you're starting over after 50.)

One evening, maybe when you least expect it, you'll catch yourself smiling at something small before you have time to feel guilty about it. When that happens, don't take it back.

You don't have to earn summer. It showed up for you anyway, the way it always does. Your only job is to stop waiting for permission to be in it.

If a map for this whole season would help, the Reinvention Roadmap Cheatsheet is free and waiting for you.

And if you'd like to spend the summer with women who truly get it, come sit with us in The Thrive Hive. There is always room on the porch. Tell us your one small summer thing. Somebody in there is claiming hers today too.

You're Not the Only One Asking

A few questions that come up again and again in our community, answered plainly.

Why is summer so hard after a big life change?

Summer is the most social, most photographed, most tradition-heavy season of the year, so it highlights everything that has changed. Winter lets you retreat. Summer expects you to show up smiling. Feeling worse in July than you did in February doesn't mean you're going backward. It means the season is louder.

Is it normal to feel jealous of everyone's vacation photos?

Completely normal, and it usually isn't jealousy at all. It's grief for the summers that came with your old life. Naming it as grief, rather than envy, takes away most of the shame and lets you respond to what you're actually feeling.

Is it okay to feel happy while I'm still grieving?

Yes. Grief and joy are not opposites, and one does not cancel the other. A good moment doesn't mean you're over it or that what you lost didn't matter. Most people move through loss by weaving in good moments, not by waiting until the grief is finished.

How do I enjoy summer when I can't do the things I used to?

Shrink the unit of joy. Instead of measuring summer in vacations and big events, measure it in ten-minute moments: something cold to drink outside, one good tomato, a chapter in a folding chair. Small pleasures count fully. They are how a new version of summer gets