Why You Should Plan Your “Main Character” Summer Now (Even If You’re a Parent)
The sun hasn’t even hit its summer peak, but already, the days feel like they’re slipping through your fingers. Another school year wraps up. Another calendar page turns. And if you’re like most parents, you’re already mentally bracing for the chaos that summer brings—sticky popsicle hands, endless snack runs, and a soundtrack of “I’m bored” playing on repeat.
But before you fall into that familiar pattern—where summer becomes a three-month survival game instead of something you actually enjoy—I’m going to ask you to consider something wild. Something just for you.
What if this summer is the one where you finally stop playing a side character in your own life?
Image Credit: Midjourney AI
You don’t have to wait for your kids to be older. You don’t have to wait for the perfect schedule, more money, or the magical alignment of free time and energy that somehow never shows up. You can claim your Main Character moment now—right here, right in the middle of snack bags, swim lessons, and sticky car seats.
Because the truth is, waiting for “one day” is how you wake up ten years from now wondering where the time went. It’s how you end up with a camera roll full of pictures of your kids but none of yourself. It’s how your summer becomes a background montage in someone else’s story, while your own moments of freedom, adventure, and joy fade into the invisible work of caretaking.
And let’s be honest, your kids don’t need a perfect summer. They need a happy parent. A parent who laughs a little too loud at the ice cream stand. Who throws on sunglasses and hits the beach without worrying about the extra pounds or the messy hair. A parent who shows them by example what it looks like to take up space in their own life and live fully, unapologetically.
This isn’t about being selfish. It’s about being whole. Because the version of you that dances barefoot on the lawn, that plans a spontaneous day trip just for the thrill of it, that remembers what it feels like to be alive in her own skin—that version of you doesn’t just benefit you. She’s the one your kids remember. She’s the one who teaches them that adulthood isn’t a sentence of exhaustion and self-sacrifice; it’s a season of life where you’re still allowed to play, dream, and feel free.
So plan the summer you’d want to star in. Build it around small moments if you have to—late-night drives with the windows down, a playlist that makes you feel like you’re seventeen again, solo coffee dates where you sit in silence and remember that you’re a person, not just a to-do list.
Take the trips, even if they’re just to the next town over. Wear the outfit that makes you feel like you own the room, even if the “room” is a grocery store. Be bold enough to show up in your own life, even if no one else claps for it but you.
Because when the sun sets on this summer, you’ll either have memories that make you smile or regrets about the chances you didn’t take.
And trust me, your kids won’t remember a perfect house or perfectly scheduled activities. But they will remember the way your eyes lit up when you told them, “Let’s do something fun today.”
So go ahead. Romanticize your life a little. Pretend you’re the lead in a movie if that’s what it takes. Plan the summer that future you will look back on and say, That’s when I remembered who I was.
Because the truth is… you’ve always been the main character.
You’re just finally starting to act like it.
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