Whether you like it or not, July is upon us, and for me that means I can't help but overhaul my life.
|3 minute read|
It’s 80 degrees upstairs and my legs are starting to sweat under the blanket that I insisted I still throw atop myself. I can’t imagine doing much more than laying here and writing this, the heat does this to me when it is the middle of summer and even the bugs can’t be out too long. With any temperature above 100 outside, there isn’t much to do but be inside. And that’s where I am and where I’ll be. Inside, on top of the sheets, under the sheets. Inside with our hands intertwined or gripping a paperback book bent backwards at the crease. Inside staring out, closing my eyes. Outside it’s July and inside I feel the weight of it.
Annually, for whatever reason, July is the month I rethink everything. My choices, my path, where to go next. Why it is, I’ll never know, the brevity of July hits me with a force I never see coming, but feel every time. So for my month of worry this time around, I made my period 5 days late, turns out stressing about it coming doesn’t actually will it true, and decided (and changed my mind) four different times on where and when I should move. I’m exhausted because of the July heat. I’m exhausted because of the July worrying.
But in some twisted, whimsical way, being this uptight has freed me. From what, I can’t say for certain, but to become so bound, so tied up into plans that may or may not ever come true, just to crumple it up and toss it away next to the other changed plans or discarded ideas seems like I am still in control. At least somewhat. I think of my brother in these instances, an example I’m sure I’ve mentioned many times before. If nonchalant was a person, he would be Nicholas. To give into a stressful situation is just not his idea of fun, but perhaps he would shrug his shoulders, grunt an “oh man” and decide that things are fine, as they were before, and he’s already out the door thinking about something else. Put me in the same situation, maybe we’re talking lost luggage, a new job, even perhaps the simple act of making a decision, and I’m a crumbling mess of tears and snot, thinking to myself, “why is this happening to me?” To which I then dwell on said problem, make it much bigger than it really is, to the point that it consumes me; swallowing me whole, the monster I made in my head of a very normal circumstance of stress, becomes the end of me as I know it, every single time.
There’s still nineteen days in July, a checkmate on time to still make this month sweet. Again, I’m asking myself, what’s the rush? July will become August, August will become September, and in the same blind faith, I will become what I need to be. These hot days will pass, it won’t always be 80 degrees upstairs. There is a time to rush, but it doesn’t need to be now; much like how the time to worry will come and go, our long days and warm nights. July tries to suffocate me with choices, but what a sweet feeling to choose anything I want. I’ll feel the sweat prick the top of my lip, moisten my neck, roll down my back and I can dream up anything I want in this heat; things I'd never before considered, or things I’d swish in my mind time and time again. I’ll still sit atop my sheets, running potential plans through my head until I can almost taste them in my mouth. But the creature lurking in July doesn’t get me this time, because in July we are all human. We can worry, rush, lay down, do nothing, sweat, and just be. It’s too hot for stress, it’s too hot to worry, but just right for sitting and being.
until it cools off,
natalie <3
