Every new month or season change I definitely get a tinge of anxiety… time is moving too fast.
Let’s be honest—summer’s ending, and we not okay about it.
Maybe you didn’t travel as much as you planned. Maybe you were supposed to “slow down and savor it,” but you blinked and suddenly it’s almost the end of August and your Google calendar is screaming about September meetings and fall chaos, and OMG holiday season…
You catch yourself spiraling:
Another season gone.
Another year flying by.
What am I even doing with my life?
If that’s you? Take a breath. You’re not the only one caught in this weird panic spiral about time moving too fucking fast. I’m there with you, for sure.
Let’s talk about it. Because behind the “I just wish I had more time” narrative is something deeper—and if you’re a high-functioning, anxious, independent woman, you’ve probably been taught to ignore it.
The Anxiety Isn’t Really About Summer
Sure, the sun’s setting a little earlier. Sure, the breezy joy of rooftop drinks and beach weekends are winding down. But if you’re feeling a full-on emotional tidal wave as August ends, the grief is about more than summer.
It’s about time.
It’s about control.
It’s about expectations.
And it’s about the relentless pressure you put on yourself to use every moment wisely, to optimize every second, to not “waste” your one wild and precious life. (Thanks, Mary Oliver, for the existential dread.) Or Oliver Burkeman for reminding us how many weeks we have left in this life (4000 weeks is a very good book, we read in bookclub last year!)
If you’re childfree by choice, this pressure can hit even harder. (and heck, if you’re thinking about trying to have a baby or are just generally a woman in your 30s or 40s… this all still applies!!) Society constantly tells you you’re supposed to fill your time with something “productive” or “purposeful.” You’re not just living—you’re expected to be crushing it. Traveling. Thriving. Growing. Healing. Being an icon of the empowered woman who has her shit together.
So when summer ends and you don’t feel transformed?
When you feel like time slipped through your fingers?
Cue the inner critic.
“What did you even do this summer?”
“You didn’t do enough.”
“You wasted it. Again.”
No wonder you feel anxious. That voice is brutal.
You’re Not Wasting Time—You’re Exhausted from Holding It All
If you feel like the weeks flew by and you didn’t make the most of them, it doesn’t mean you’re lazy or failing. It might mean you were busy surviving. Managing your job. Managing your body. Managing your emotions. Managing other people’s needs.
And doing all of that while trying to appear calm, competent, and “fun,” because god forbid someone thinks you’re not chill.
That kind of invisible labor is fucking exhausting.
Of course it doesn’t feel like enough.
Of course you’re grieving time passing.
You weren’t doing nothing—you were carrying everything.
Let’s Reframe Time (Because Time Isn’t the Enemy)
Here’s the thing: Time is not your enemy. The passing of it doesn’t mean you’re failing. The end of summer doesn’t mean you’ve lost your shot at joy, freedom, or peace.
The part of you that’s panicking? She doesn’t need a productivity app.
She needs compassion.
She’s trying to protect you—from regret, from shame, from the pain of feeling like you’re falling behind in a life that looks “fine” on the outside but doesn’t always feel satisfying on the inside.
What if instead of criticizing her, you listened?
What if you gently asked:
What was I craving this summer that I didn’t get?
What do I wish I could still have?
What would feel nourishing now, not just when the timing is perfect?
This is how we start to rebuild from the inside out.
This is how we start to grow into something real—not just performative “living our best lives.”
You Can Start Now (You Don’t Need a Perfect Moment)
Here’s a truth I want you to hear loud and clear:
You don’t need a new season, a new month, or a new planner to start shifting how you live.
You can begin right fucking now—with gentleness.
You can look back on the summer and grieve the parts that didn’t happen.
You can notice where anxiety hijacked your joy.
You can admit that your inner perfectionist made you feel like you weren’t doing enough—even when you were doing everything.
And you can decide that moving forward, you’re not going to measure time by how productive you were. You’re going to measure it by how connected you felt—to yourself, to the moment, to what actually matters to you (not your boss, your feed, or your mom).
You Don’t Need to Earn Peace
That’s the real reframe: You don’t need to earn rest or joy or stillness.
You don’t need to hustle to deserve healing.
You don’t need to fill every moment with something impressive.
You are allowed to just exist in your life, not constantly build or achieve or strive.
Maybe the lesson of summer slipping away isn’t that you didn’t do enough.
Maybe it’s that you were never meant to grind through your life in the first place.
So, What Now?
If this post makes you want to cry and scream and maybe lie down on the floor—good. That means it’s hitting something. That ache that says, “I want something more than this constant pressure”? That’s where your healing starts.
You don’t have to do this alone.
Every week I work with anxious, childfree women who’ve been high-functioning for way too long and are finally ready to unravel what’s underneath the “I’m fine.” Using grounded, trauma-informed tools, we dig deep—not just to feel better, but to feel real.
So when your brain tells you time is slipping away?
When it panics that summer is over and you missed it?
You’ll know how to come back to yourself instead of spiraling.
You’ll know how to anchor in your body instead of racing in your head.
You’ll know how to grieve, reflect, and rebuild—not shame yourself into change.
Because seasons will always pass.
But you? You don’t have to.
You get to grow.
Want support that goes deeper than coping skills?
Book a free consultation. You’ve done the holding-it-all-together thing.
Now it’s your fucking turn to rebuild and grow.
