Growing Into Summer

For a long time, I thought abundance looked like more.

More progress. More accomplishments. More proof that I was doing enough. More books sold. More people reading. More boxes checked off the list before I allowed myself to sit down at the end of the day.

I don't know when I learned to measure my life that way. Maybe we all do. We absorb the idea that growth should be visible, that a successful season should have something concrete to show for itself.

A promotion.

A finished project.

A number that went up.

Something you can point to and say, "See? I didn't waste my time."

To be fair, I still love crossing things off a list. Color coding is still my love language, but lately, I've been wondering if I've been using the wrong measuring stick.

Some of the richest moments of this summer haven't looked impressive at all. They've looked like carrying my coffee outside before the Tennessee heat settles in for the day.

Others sounded like wind chimes bumping softly against each other while the dogs conducted their self-appointed neighborhood watch, convinced every squirrel, rabbit, and passing leaf required immediate supervision.

A few smelled like freshly cut grass drifting over the fence from a neighbor mowing on a Saturday morning. Others felt like settling into my favorite purple rocking chair with a book I may or may not actually read because I got distracted watching the birds hop through the yard instead.

And honestly, some have even looked like tomatoes at the farmer's market that somehow taste like actual tomatoes, sunscreen on the back of my neck, and lightning bugs beginning their evening shift just as the sky slips from blue to gold.

None of it would make a particularly impressive highlight reel. No one is handing out awards for noticing the first fireflies of the season. No one applauds because you sat on the porch long enough to hear the cicadas start their nightly chorus.

And yet...these are the moments I remember.

Not because they were extraordinary.

Because they weren't.

They happened on ordinary Tuesdays. Because they asked nothing of me except that I be there for them.

I think summer has been trying to teach me something I spent years resisting.

The tomatoes ripen when they're ready.

The trees don't compare themselves to the trees next door.

The fireflies don't blink harder because someone else is shining brighter.

Nothing in nature seems particularly concerned with proving its worth. It simply grows.

It reaches toward the light. It rests when the season calls for rest. It becomes what it was meant to become.

Maybe abundance isn't having more. Maybe it's noticing.

Maybe it's realizing that this life, with its coffee rings and dog hair and evenings spent slapping mosquitoes while insisting, "Just five more minutes," isn't a placeholder while we wait for something better to begin.

Maybe this is it.

Maybe this ordinary summer day is the life we've been working so hard to build.

Enough isn't something we settle for.

It's something we finally learn to recognize.

© 2025 Quiet Cup Press, LLC. All rights reserved. | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy
Physical books sold through Amazon and IngramSpark include any applicable sales tax at checkout. Digital downloads and PDF products purchased directly from Quiet Cup Press are not subject to sales tax.