Being at the end of the18th summer🧡

On nostalgia, working mum rushing & new seasons

Antonia Taylor

Aug 21, 2025

“Honey, I’m sorry I keep saying Hurry ̶
you walk ahead of me.”
Marie Howe

Hi Friend,

How’s your August been?

It’s big end-of-summer vibes here. We’re preparing for my eldest to head to university next month.

My daughter goes next year.

It’s a mood.

You bet I had another post planned.

I’m landing in back-to-school season with a lot going on in my business. A poetry deadline. A launch.

But I feel like I’ve been carrying around this piece all summer. And like with my forthcoming white paper, I’ve learnt that if a piece of writing or idea follows you around, you need to turn around and acknowledge it. To let it in.

Full disclosure, I’ve gone back and forth on sharing this one. It’s vulnerable and it’s more steeped in nostalgia than a can of peaches. But then what is August if not a time for sweet, stoned fruit and endings?

Also, it goes against everything I teach - to silence ourselves first.

We’ll be back to business in two weeks.

Being at the end of the 18th summer🧡

1. A few years back, there was this meme on the internet.

“You only get 18 delicious summers with your kids. This is one of your 18. If that's not perspective, I don't know what is”.

You must have been around 13 at the time. Which gave me five more according to social media psychology.

I’ve been counting backwards ever since.

It wasn’t perspective. It was a paroxysm of purest panic.

2. We’re coming towards the end of your 18^th summer. Suddenly there’s no buffer.

Years became months, became weeks, became days.

Now you’re making lists for university kitchenware and dorm-room bedlinen. You asked me to order you some notebooks.

3. On the steps outside the Museu Nacional D’Art de Catalunya, you’re telling me how in Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell had to adjust to the philosophy of "mañana mañana". A softer approach to time. To urgency. To hurrying.

Ok, he was fighting a civil war. Still.

We have the same in Greek. Σιγά σιγά. Slowly slowly.

I never understood this. Or I ignored it. Either way, I rushed instead.

4. You were five when I set up my business. My then-boss told me I couldn’t go to your nativity play so I had to make up a doctor’s appointment.

My intention had been to build a freedom business. With flexibility and school hours and never to miss a pick-up.

Of course, I never worked harder. And I always felt I needed more time to work.

Now, I have it. And your bedroom door is open.

5. Your first summer it rained constantly. There were sandbags on the high street and flood warnings. Walking along the river-path where I’d take you most days, the grass has turned to rubble in the heatwave. It looks like scorched earth. I try not to draw an analogy.

6. In January, an energy healer told me that now was the time for me to give more attention to my work and business. That it was my time and I needed to. Is she right? I haven’t been back.

7. I’ve always found it hard to write about motherhood. Whether in the context of my business or my poems. I think because I found it easy and that’s hard to say out loud. Challenges and stresses and curveballs – yes. Of course. But you made it so easy.

8. And I always wanted so much for you. For you to believe in yourself half as much as I do.

9. A few months ago, you told me “You’ll still be my mum.” I know this. I repeat it constantly.

10. Clearing out my email, I found a 2014 note to your dad, mapping childcare plans.

A couple of weeks of sports camp.
A few days with your grandparents.
A holiday.
Winging it the rest of the time.

You move so fast through every stage of childhood. Now I know what felt like stress was actually a golden time.

I remind myself not to say this to younger mothers.

11. On Instagram, I saw that by the time your child is 18, you’ve already spent 92% of the total time you will ever spend with them.

I think about the 8%.

I unfollow.

12. This summer I haven’t felt burnt out in my business. In previous years, I feel like I crawl towards our holiday depleted and done. This year, I had more to give. I took notes with me when we went away. I feel a different sense of purpose. It feels like renewal. Like I’m building something. This whole new chapter.

13. When you and your sister were very little, and everything was sort of on fire, I read a book saying, “The days are long, but the years are short.”

I repeated it.
I quoted it back to friends.
It didn’t stop the years passing.

14. I come across a podcast called Life After Kids. Its latest episode is called “Preparing Emotionally for Your Child’s College Departure.” I hit Play Next.

15. This endless summer is drawing to a close. I hope it’s exactly what you wished for. Your boys’ trip and festivals and night after night in the pub with your school friends. Everywhere, there’s sunflowers and blackberries and the trees are heavy with apples. The weather’s already turning.

16. Did I rush through it? Did I pay attention? Was I always distracted by work or deadlines or to-do-lists? Did I rush you?

17. My friends heap generosity and advice onto me.

The build-up is worse than the event. (Nat)

This month will be hard, but you’ll get through it. Promise. (Kate)

All will be well. (Paula)

18. Motherhood is terrain. Utterly unchartered terrain.
And this new season is a whole new landscape to navigate.

You, my sweet boy, have always had such a strong sense of direction. I remember your first time in Paris. Were you 10? How easily you guided us from Notre Dame back to our hotel in the Latin Quarter when I got lost.

I know you’ll hand me the instructions to read this new map.🗺️

Ouff. Thank you for staying with this one. As always, I’m so grateful for every ❤️ and comment. Or just hit reply. I know a lot of my peers and colleagues are in this boat too (or just past/ before it). I send you love.

Back next month. Business as usual

With love,
Antonia xo

PS I nearly called this “Being at the end of the frigging 18^th summer”. I thought best not.