What July Asked Of Me

Some months hand you a clean, single word. July wasn’t one of them.My theme for July was steady, but life had other ideas. Here’s what July asked of me.

What July Asked of Me in Four Words

Helplessness

Steadiness, I learned, isn’t the absence of struggle. It’s what we return to within it. This month, helplessness had both a personal and a national face. I noticed it in my own stress and grief, and in watching students protest injustice and face violence. Sometimes there is little we can do but witness, care, and refuse to look away. (You can read my post on Substack for more about this : When Staying Quiet is Not An Option)

Hope

And yet, hope kept returning. In quiet gratitude. In treating stress as something to listen to. In making room for both grief and joy. Watching young people continue to stand up for what they believe in. Hope, I’ve realised, doesn’t require naivety. We can choose it with our eyes wide open.

Kindness

This may be the word I’ll remember July by. Kindness looked like self-compassion and allowing myself to rest. It looked like coffee before writing, walking Lucky, and taking a breath before responding. It looked like strangers offering food, first aid, rides, legal aid and quiet company to people they didn’t know. For us, it meant reaching out to fund food and travel for students in Delhi, as the volunteers on the ground asked for support.

Anticipation

I’m not sure if July really brought steadiness. What I have instead is anticipation—a slightly unsettled curiosity about what comes next. Will I keep returning to what grounds me? Can I carry the courage and kindness I witnessed carry into August? I don’t know. But perhaps we don’t have to know to keep moving forward.

What are your four words to end July? I’d love to know.

PS: I wrote this post at the end of July but didn’t pulish it. It seemed a waste not to. 🙂