Sad Girl Summer

Rewilding Mind

Hi there, it’s Hillarie! Rewilding Mind is a reflection on my experience leaving modern city living to pursue homesteading. It’s a calming read to help you slow down, be present, and find wonder in the everyday. Read on for ideas on returning to nature, finding ourselves, and creating community. 💚

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Audio Newsletter

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Hey friends,

It’s been another week of cool weather without moisture here in the PNW. Learning to garden in this weather is real shit show and requires so much patience. We have stretches of days in the upper 60s, with evening dips down into the low 40s. Less than ten days have peaked above 70 degrees this year. As a result, lots of my plants are only a few inches tall and looking mopey af. I give them regular pep-talks, but the truth is, they look how I feel. Sad. Bummed. Beat. But still willing to give it a shot.

The sadness is in large part because I had monumentally high expectations going into my second summer gardening. I started planting seeds in February and dreamed everyday about how incredible our PNW summer would be. I expanded my garden from two raised beds last year to seven this year. Later, I added an in-ground garden in my front yard because I had to see what I could grow. I dreamed of this summer for many months and the fantastic amounts of produce I’d be picking. Instead, climate change has served up a sad, melancholy version of a dumpster fire.

In addition to the garden, some of the sadness is attached to the collective grief and exhaustion from the last few years. The reality of so many things is beginning to sink in: a warming planet, decaying social fabric, the squeeze of capitalism, water / food / energy shortages, an ongoing housing crisis, women losing body autonomy, and basic human rights being stripped away around the world. As more people start to recognize and reckon with the stark reality of these events, the personal and shared heartache only grows.

Sadness is a familiar place for me, even as a happy and upbeat person. I am not afraid of tears, but I don’t always have the words to articulate the heaviness that comes with them. In a recent therapy session, I droned through my list of to-dos that felt impossible. My therapist heard my words and then asked,“Hillarie, are you feeling sad?” I responded by immediately melting into an actual puddle of tears. I sat in silence for some time, trying to prioritize the sadness and untangle the many strings.

Of course I am sad, but somehow this time feels different. Maybe it is because I now how two kiddos. Could be that that I abandoned my corporate C-suite dreams for homesteading. Could be that the world is actually burning down. When I talk to friends, families, and neighbors, I hear and feel these same sentiments repeated over and over. We have worked to live and lived to work. Our bodies are hurting and our souls are weary. We are tired and sad. Sad and tired. It is sad girl summer, indeed.

In my past life, I soothed these feelings with ample amounts of retail therapy, pastries, doom scrolling, and pity parties for one. Sorrow could simply be drowned out with a quick scroll through Amazon, a trip to the store, or anything else that felt like a tangible accomplishment. The screams of a dying planet could easily silenced with enough sugar, entertainment, and luxury. The result was more of the same: more anxiousness about the future, more uncertainty about what I could do to help, and more rage towards to institutions that have so gleefully and selfishly ushered us to this this place.

And, at the same time, I recognize that sadness with no action is a sure path to hopelessness, uncontrolled anger, and depression. The social worker in me knows that there are paths around the darkness and there are paths through darkness. The latter is far more effective in creating change but it that requires a different kind of work being done on a personal and on the community level. Given the failure rate of carbs and ice cream for solving global problems, I have chosen the more difficult path this time.

And so, my sad girl summer drags on, but underneath there is movement being made towards something bigger and more beautiful. Internal work being done to learn new ways of seeing the world and create new rituals for healing. There is community work being done to process our collective frustration and channel it into something that feels like a life worth living. Next week, I will share more about what that looks like and how others can begin to create the same kind of change for themselves and their communities.

Feel free to hit reply and share what this summer has been like for you given the strangeness of the world. Thanks for reading and joining me on this journey. Take care, be kind, and we'll talk soon.

Hillarie