We are supposedly in the last week of summer. But let’s be real, it’s not actually the last week. The sun hasn’t signed off yet. The weather app is still screaming UV index 9. The sandals still have one more lap in them. And yet the vibe says otherwise.

Because after this week comes Labor Day, then school begins, and suddenly life catapults itself forward like a slingshot aimed squarely at my calendar. Suddenly, I’m not just living life, I’m managing it with surgical precision. School holidays must be marked. Work holidays too. Then come the work trips, the big work projects, and oh yes, those six looming medical appointments that have already RSVP’d themselves onto my calendar. Somewhere in there, I’m supposed to breathe.

And think. Thinking, you know, that quiet, reflective process that’s supposed to be a cornerstone of being human. Right now, it feels like a luxury item I can only access in stolen moments: in the shower (where all Nobel-Prize-winning ideas are born), on the subway (where humanity shows its strangest faces), or while skipping up the stairs two at a time (because efficiency counts as cardio).

This week, then, isn’t so much an ending of summer as it is the ending of drift time. The kind of time where you can stare at a ceiling fan and let your brain wander to nowhere important. Now it’s all about efficiency, productivity, schedules, and lists within lists.

But here’s the thing: even in the crunch of it all, life has this sneaky way of offering up micro-moments of joy. A silly song on my commute. A perfectly crisp iced coffee. A stranger’s unexpected kindness. A laugh with my son. These are the stolen seconds where I reclaim just a little of that summer state of mind.

So no, it’s not the last week of summer. It’s just the week where reality sets the table for the banquet of chaos to come. And if I can’t think deeply in long stretches, then I’ll settle for thinking in splashes like when the shampoo bottle is half-empty, or when the subway delays just enough to give me three extra minutes. Because sometimes, that’s all we get. And honestly, sometimes, that’s all we need.