There’s no easing back into our NC life after Maine. I’ve been gone two weeks, so the inbox is full, the studio has been running without me, and before I am even unpacked, I’m already back at my desk catching up.
Which is a strange contrast, because the two weeks before that are about as unstructured as my life ever gets. Mornings are slow — helping my mom in her garden, or my dad in the woods, or his garden too, depending on the day. We eat raspberries we picked ourselves for breakfast and walk out to the garden to figure out dinner. Afternoons are for cooling off in a lake so clear and cold you can see your feet on the bottom from ten yards out. There is no calendar. There is barely a clock.
And then we land back in Durham, and real life doesn’t ease us back in. It just starts, immediately.
This year, it started with Emery turning 16. Which means an upcoming DMV appointment for her license (a milestone I am still not emotionally prepared for, if I’m honest), a sweet 16 party to plan, and the late-summer scramble of soccer training, SAT prep, and getting ready for her junior year — plus a new club soccer season kicking off as well. It’s less “back to school” and more a dead sprint toward it. A race to the start, not the finish.
Here’s the strange part: even in the middle of that sprint, I catch myself missing the structure that’s coming. A set school calendar. Earlier bedtimes. The predictable rhythm of school days and practices and dinner together most nights. After the openness of Maine and the chaos of August, there’s something almost restful about a schedule you can actually plan around.
This year I’m feeling it a little differently, though. Emery’s junior year means we’re close enough to the end of this chapter that I can see it from here — and I know that in a couple of years, this particular kind of busy, the one built around her school year and her practices and her milestones, is going to look different. Quieter, probably. So instead of just gritting my teeth through the sprint, I’m trying to actually notice it. The DMV waiting room counts. So does the sweet 16 planning fun. It’s all part of it.
I’d guess a lot of you are somewhere in your own version of this right now — coming off a looser summer, staring down a calendar that’s suddenly full again, trying to figure out where your own health fits into it. So here’s what’s actually helping me reset this year:
Getting Back Into It Without Burning Out
Start smaller than you think you need to. The instinct after a loose summer is to make up for lost time – go hard the first week back and prove you’re “on it.” That’s usually what kills momentum by week two. Twenty minutes, three times a week, is a real start. Consistency is what rebuilds the habit; intensity just rebuilds your soreness.
Anchor one thing to the calendar you already have. You don’t need a perfect new system in September – you need one workout or one prep session that rides along with a schedule that’s already locked in, like right after a school drop-off (we have a Tues/Thurs 8:30am TRX class :)) or a walk every evening right after dinner. Piggybacking a habit onto an existing routine works better than trying to build a whole new one from scratch.
Prep for the week you’ll actually have, not the ideal one. Fifteen minutes on Sunday — washing greens, portioning proteins, setting out gym clothes — removes a dozen small decisions from your week. When your evenings are eaten up by driving kids around or other commitments, decision fatigue is the thing that actually derails you, not lack of willpower.
Protect it like an appointment, because it is one. If it’s not on the calendar, it’s the first thing that gets bumped when the week gets messy — and this time of year, the week always gets messy. Block it the same way you’d block a parent-teacher conference or a client call. Nobody argues with a calendar invite.
Build in a backup for the days that fall apart. Some days the plan works. Some days there’s a late practice, a DMV appointment that runs long, and dinner at 8pm. Have a 10-minute fallback ready — a walk, a stretch session, a few sets of bodyweight work — so a disrupted day doesn’t turn into a disrupted week. Progress holds up better under flexibility than under perfection.
Don’t do it solo. This is the one I’d underline twice this year. Whether it’s a coach, a class, or just a friend who expects you to show up, having someone else in the loop makes the hard weeks easier and the good ones sweeter. When someone’s expecting you, it’s a lot harder to talk yourself out of it.
However this season is showing up for you — whether you’re racing toward a new school year, a new job, or just trying to reclaim a little structure after a loose summer — give yourself the same grace you’d give a friend in the same spot.
Small, steady steps. That’s really all a reset ever is.
We’re here cheering you on, as always.
