5 Things I’m Loving This Season of Life

Not a season in the pumpkin-spice sense. A season of life. The kind where you catch yourself noticing what’s making this stretch feel specifically like this one, and not the last one, and not the next one either.

I’m not a round-up girl by nature. I don’t have a curated shelf of amber-glass apothecary bottles or a linen-clad reading nook that photographs well. But I do keep noticing small, real things lately that add up to something that feels like a specific season, and I wanted to write them down before it shifts into a different one.

Here are five. In no particular order, except for the first one, which is honestly the whole thing.

1. Finally accepting my body

This is the truest one on the list, so it goes first.

I’m somewhere in the middle of my life now, and my body reflects it. There’s the slightly deflated skin from weight loss that no one really warns you about. The first wrinkles, which are less alarming and more just… factual. The C-section scar that has been with me longer than most of my friendships. The wonky ankle that lets me know when the weather’s about to change (turns out, before Elliott’s weather alerts do — more on that in a minute).

For a long time, I nitpicked all of it. Then, at some point recently, and I couldn’t tell you exactly when, I stopped.

I leave the house without a full face of makeup now. Sometimes without any at all. I don’t scan the mirror for what needs fixing before I go somewhere. I put on the outfit I wanted to wear, not the one that would hide the most.

None of this is a transformation story. It’s not “I did the work and now I love myself.” It’s more like I finally stopped auditioning for a version of myself I was never going to be, and the relief of it has been substantial. Loving my body might be too strong a phrase. But loving being free of the constant negotiation with it — yes. That, absolutely.

If you’re waiting on this shift, I don’t know what to tell you except it might come sooner than you think, and it might not look like acceptance so much as a very tired, very sincere okay, this is fine.

2. Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey

Right, moving right along.

Chunky Monkey has become food in this house. It counts as breakfast. It counts as dinner. It counts as an afternoon meeting with myself. I have no defense for this and I’m not offering one.

I mention it partly because it’s true and partly because it belongs on the list next to the last one. The same season that quieted down the mirror also quieted down the pantry rules. There’s less should about food than there used to be, which turns out to be a real gift, and also a real amount of banana and walnut ice cream.

Anyway. Ten out of ten. Would eat for breakfast again tomorrow, and probably will.

3. Claude skills

The business one, but a real one.

If you’ve been anywhere near AI conversations this year, you already know that “I use AI” can mean anything from I asked it to write my caption to I have replaced my entire personality with a chatbot. What I actually mean is that I’ve built a small collection of what are called skills — think of them as very specific brain assistants I trained on my own voice, my ideal client, my beliefs, my offers, my writing preferences.

So when I sit down to write a blog post, I’m not starting from a blinking cursor and generic prompts. I’m working with something that already knows I hate the word warm in copy, that my brand is blue-anchored and never beige, and that my client is a seasoned wellness provider who has outgrown her DIY site.

The reason it made the list: I get to spend my working hours on the thinking part now, instead of the wrangling part. The strategy, the shaping, the “does this actually land” question. That’s the part I love and always have. The rest of it, the churning through drafts and reformatting and rewriting my own voice back into things, I don’t miss.

It’s not a magic wand. But it’s the closest thing I’ve had to a small, patient, competent team, and I’m surprised how much that’s changed how it feels to run a business by myself.

4. Coffee brewed in our Nespresso machine

The smallest thing on the list, and one of the ones I’d fight for hardest.

There’s a specific two-minute window in the morning where I stand at the kitchen counter, hit the button, listen to the little hiss and grind of the machine, and don’t do anything else. No phone. No inbox. No mental checklist. Just the sound, the smell, the pour, and the walk back to my chair.

It’s not a ritual I planned. It became one because I noticed I was doing it every day, and I noticed I felt different when I skipped it. That counts as a practice, I think, even if it doesn’t come with a candle or a journaling prompt.

I don’t drink fancy coffee. I don’t grind beans. The Nespresso does its little thing and I’m grateful to it. This season of life has convinced me that the small pleasures aren’t a bonus. They’re kind of the point.

5. Elliott coming into his own

Saving the sweetest for last.

Elliott is currently very interested in weather alert alarms. The tornado warnings, the severe thunderstorm watches, the specific tones the emergency broadcast system uses. He can identify them by maker and model number. He wants to talk about them. He would like the rest of us to also care, please, and I do try.

What I love about it is not the meteorology (though I now know more about wall clouds than I did six months ago). What I love is watching him become a person with actual opinions and obsessions. Not the general “child” version of Elliott. The specific, particular, only-one-of-him version. The one who has a thing, and the thing is his, and he’ll tell you about it whether you asked or not.

I don’t know if that ever stops being the whole gig of being a parent. Watching the person in front of you become more themselves. I hope it doesn’t.

The through-line

None of this is aesthetic. None of it is aspirational. There’s no candle brand at the bottom of this post and no affiliate link to a body-neutral wellness program.

They’re just five things that are true right now, in this specific stretch of my life, that I wanted to write down before the season shifts into a different one. Which it will. That’s kind of the deal with seasons.

If you want to tell me what you’re loving right now, come find me on Instagram at @sharonwilkes.co. I’d genuinely love to hear it, especially if yours also involves ice cream for breakfast.