within summer edition

Written By Courtney Popelier
 
 
 

I remember it like it was yesterday.

The excitement of a warm, sunny day ahead. The kind of Michigan morning where the air already smells like sunscreen and lake water. Boats gently rocking in their slips. Trees swaying in the breeze that kept the perfect temperature.

My husband was finishing one of his “favorite” daily tasks—cleaning the bugs off the boat before we headed out (iykyk). I was chasing little boys around, trying to get swimsuits on tiny bodies that somehow always had somewhere more important to be.

It was our family’s definition of summer, and we were truly spoiled to live it.

There really is nothing quite like a Michigan summer spent up north. It's as if Mother Nature spends months preparing this beautiful gift for us after a long winter.

And maybe that's part of why we try so hard to squeeze every last drop out of it.

The vacations. The beach days. The backyard dinners. The sunsets. The memories.

But every one of us carries different expectations into summer.

Some of us are entering it full of excitement. Some are simply trying to survive it.

Some are still enjoying old traditions. Some are making completely new ones.

Some are watching their children grow a little more independent and quietly grieving the version of summer that no longer exists. Some are finally learning how to rest. ::queue the exhale::

The details are different, but the invitation is the same: Be here.

Because no matter how desperately we want to hold onto a season, we can't.

Not because something tragic will always happen. But because life keeps moving.

Our children grow. Our relationships evolve. Our traditions change. Our lives change.

The summers we have this year won't be the summers we have five years from now. And that's both heartbreaking...and beautiful.

I've learned that peace doesn't come from trying to recreate a season that's already passed—it comes from fully inhabiting the one that's here.

I've also realized that the memories we treasure most aren't usually the perfectly planned ones.

They're the ones we were actually present enough to experience.

The laughter around a dinner table. Sticky popsicle hands. The smell of sunscreen lingering long after the sun has set. The quiet drive home after a day on the lake. A conversation that unexpectedly changes you.

The memories we treasure aren’t usually the perfectly planned ones.

They’re the ones we are actually present enough to experience.

My hubby captured this moment. :)

Those moments don't become meaningful because they're extraordinary.

They become meaningful because, for just a little while, we were completely there.

I don't have this all figured out — most days I still wish I could step back onto that boat with Greg and our boys when they were wee little ones and relive what I didn't yet know I would someday desperately miss.

But the truth is that we're never promised another summer exactly like this one…because life is designed to keep unfolding.

Every chapter offers something different. Every season grows us differently.

Our job isn't to cling so tightly to what’s gone that we miss what's here.

It's to receive this chapter for exactly what it is...knowing that one day, we'll look back and realize it, too, was shaping us.

So if I could leave you with one gentle reminder for what’s left of this summer, it would be this:

Slow down just enough to notice the life you're living while you're living it.

Because presence has a beautiful way of turning ordinary moments into the ones we carry forever.

Cheers to beautiful summer memories, ladies.

With all my love and soul,

Courtney

 
 
 
 

About the author

Hey there

I’m Courtney

I run Journey Through Bliss, a community I was inspired to create for high-capacity women who are ready to do things differently.

After walking through motherhood, profound personal loss and the unraveling of everything I thought I knew, I discovered that healing doesn’t happen through hustle or push—it happens in the pauses. That sacred, often uncomfortable space where we meet ourselves again.

I created this work because I needed it too. Not another thing to add to the list—but a way of being that integrates into real life.

In JTB, we focus on disrupting lifelong patterns by understanding and re-calibrating the nervous system, and on finding a clear, sustainable path through inner work and healing modalities that actually serve you in everyday life.

At the heart of my work is a simple but radical belief: we were all born with magic. We just forgot. And remembering is always worth it.

I’m here to help women do just that—individually, and together.

 
 


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