Summer! It’s arriving this Thursday, June 20, 2024, at 4:51pm EST, and like life, it’ll slip ‘n slide away from us unless we stop for a hot sec and figure out how to make these 94 days matter.

Let’s do a quick temperature check. Where are you on the Summerlicious Heat-o-Meter?

Regardless of where you sit on the savor-vs-squander-summer-spectrum, can I encourage you to pay just a little more attention to it this year? Not because it might be your last (that kind of talk is even too morbid for me! Although it totally might be your last) but because it represents 13 Mondays out of the 4,000-ish you’ve been allotted in your fabulous-yet-dwindling existence.

Paying attention to this summer flexes the “life gets lived around here” muscle and leads to more vitality-filled seasons to come (because when you slay summer, you’re going to want to keep up the momentum and also win winter).

Let’s use summer as an excuse to look at a three-month block of our lives and make them count, shall we?

Five Questions to Prevent Summer from Melting Away

Question 1: What do you want to do this summer that’ll be worth remembering?

Research is clear that we remember two key timeframes amid life situations: the peak emotional moment during the event, and how it ends. Orchestrate a Big Wow during your summer, and rig it so you end with a bang. Make that last weekend so fabulous you’ll still be paying it off talking about it for years to come. Peak moment &/or big bang ending ideas include …

• Maybe a neighborhood s’mores eating contest?
• A white wine blind tasting event?
• An epic scavenger hunt through your town?
• A family triathlon event with engraved trophies?
• Maybe you rent an ice-cream truck and drive around town (in a non-pervy way)?
• An overnighter camping in the woods?
• A budget-stretching rental property on the beach for a week?
• Summer camp for adults?

Question 2: Is there something special you can do that you’ll always associate with Summer of 2024? Try a few of these on for size:

• “We had at least one meal outside every single day of Summer 2024”
• “I was in the water 30 days in the Summer of 2024”
• “I took little Timmy out to lunch every Friday in the Summer of 2024”
• “We visited 5 National parks in the Summer of 2024”
• “The Summer of 2024 was when I quit my dead-end job”
• “I ate 100 popsicles in the Summer of 2024”
• “I read a book entirely outdoors in the Summer of 2024 … not a single page indoors!”
• “The Summer of 2024 was when we drove 119 miles to watch a movie at the drive-in”
• “I ate 90 salads in the Summer of 2024”
• “I read You Only Die Once in the Summer of 2024 and loved every freaking page of it!”
• “We adopted Herbert the schnauzer in the Summer of 2024”

Question 3: What would make you feel proud to be alive this summer? Maybe the well-being high of achievement is up your alley, like one of these ideas:

• “I wrote a book in the Summer of 2024”
• “I ran 125 miles in the Summer of 2024”
• “I learned how to surf in the Summer of 2024”
• “Summer of 2024 was when I got my green belt”
• “I became a certified nutrition coach in the Summer of 2024”
• “I went to rehab in the Summer of 2024 and got my life back on track”
• “I started my podcast in the Summer of 2024”
• “The Summer of 2024 was when I launched my turkey jerky business”
• “I stayed up past 9pm five times in the Summer of 2024” (👈this one is my goal)

Question 4: What would make you feel like a kid again this summer?

Visiting a water park? Building a sandcastle? If both of those ideas sound horrifying to you, too, it’s okay because we still have options that don’t involve kids, sandfleas, or communicable diseases.

I’m wondering about one of those rebounders that I can jump up and down on, but I’m klutzy so it might be asking for a sprained ankle. Wait: kids jump first and ask first aid questions later! I will order the mini trampoline today. What activities brought you joy as a child in the summers, and how can you recreate those moments?

• Roller skate around the neighborhood (or bike, if wheels strapped to your feet terrify you, too)
• Do goofy things on celebratory days, like going to the arcade on National Video Games Day (July 9^th), or killing National Toasted Marshmallow Day (August 30^th)
• Make your own lemonade (Vodka spiking optional)
• Collect rocks or shells while walking and exploring
• Play all the board games
• Get bored and see what happens next

Question 5: How can you demonstrate to yourself that you gave a shit—two shits—about your life this summer?

Lives worth living don’t just happen to us. The summer of your dreams won’t arrive in an Amazon box (Jeff! Get working on this pronto!).

We have to fathom what might be cool (that’s the first shit) and then actually do something about it (that’s the second shit).

We have to stave off apathy, routine, and the narrative that “nothing fun ever happens around here.” We have to make things interesting/ novel/ fun/ not dead around here. It’s up to us.

The Husband and I have been celebrating the Longest Day of the Year for decades, which involves some sort of sunrise event (a.k.a.: a hideously early wake up call to get up and out to actually see the sun come up over the horizon). This year we’ll be in Boston for the LDOTY, which means that a 5:07am EST sunrise will feel like 2:07am with our time zone change from PST. I have been feeling like skipping it, because I am inherently lazy and love sleep almost as much as caramel. BUT WAIT. Statistically speaking, I have only 35 more Longest Days of the Year left. I’ll probably be coherent for about 30 of those (I expect to be mentally mushy in my 80s and I won’t even know what the sunrise is, let alone the date of the summer solstice). I MIGHT NOT EVEN HAVE THAT MANY YEARS AHEAD OF ME, so why am I bowing out because of a desire for beauty sleep?!?!?!

I want to show myself that I still care about fun, adventure, Living Like I Mean It, even when it’s not convenient.

So here we are, on the cusp of one of the remaining summers in our lives. I’m called to savor it, not squander it, and I hope you are too. If you have a good vodka lemonade recipe, please send my way. Cheers to summer 2024 … to it not being the last, and even if it is, to being fabulously well-lived.