No One Talks About July Panic

Everywhere I look, July is marketed as the month to slow down and savor summer.

The long dinners. The beach days. The tomatoes. The books you’re finally going to read… July is sold to us as this blissful pause before the rest of the year begins again.

Like most of us, I always start the year with best of intentions. I was going to finally tackle all those house projects, reorganize every closet, and cut back on frivolous spending to save for renovations (everytime I walk past my guest room, half-designed and patiently waiting for me to make a decision about whether to go with wallpaper or a fun paint color, I make brief eye contact with it... and keep walking.)

So here we are... in mid-July, and I realize have accomplished remarkably little.

I think, for so many of us, the mental strain of this year has been a lot. With everything going on in the world, any free moment that isn’t already consumed by yard work, cleaning, or life admin turns into an exercise in decision paralysis.

Do I finally start designing that guest room? Do I clean out the closets? Do I write a Substack post? Do I say screw it and spend what little free time I have with friends and family? Or do I retreat into the woods, go nonverbal, and pretend none of whats happening in the world exists?

My to-do list somehow gets longer instead of shorter, and maybe it’s some deeply ancestral warning bell, but every instinct in my body starts screaming:

Winter is coming. Get your shit together.

Because that’s really what it is, isn’t it? Somewhere around mid-July, my brain suddenly remembers that Connecticut winters are long, outdoor project season has a very real expiration date, and every unfinished project starts feeling like a race against the clock.

So, dear reader, I have to ask... is this a common feeling? Does anyone else hit this weird mid-summer existential productivity crisis?

Or are you all actually out there eating lobster rolls on the beach and frolicking in the waves without a care like Instagram would have me believe?

I’ve been trying not to be too hard on myself, but if I were giving myself a mid-year performance review, I’d probably land squarely in the “meets expectations” category of life.

Not bad, exactly. But certainly not exceeding.

Maybe August will be better.

In the meantime, if anyone has cracked the code for making progress on an endless house to-do list and making it to the beach before Labor Day, I’d genuinely love to hear it.

Until then, the guest room and I will continue making polite eye contact as I walk by.