Sunning, Glowing, and Redefining Active

This time of year, I start turning into the sun goddess version of myself. You’ll find me chasing light, craving warmth, and looking for any excuse to be outside like it’s my full-time job.

A stylized portrait of Leslie with blonde pink hair, wearing heart-shaped sunglasses and a necklace, smiling. laying poolside

There’s something funny about the word active. Somewhere along the way, people decided it only counted if you were running, lifting, sweating, tracking steps, closing rings, doing something that looked impressive from the outside. But let me tell you something. Some of the most active days of my life don’t look like that at all.

Some days, being active looks like getting outside after a week of being stuck inside your own body. It looks like fresh air hitting your face like a reset button you didn’t know you needed. It looks like sunlight warming your skin in a way that feels a little like grace.

And if you know, you know.

Because for some of us, being outside isn’t just aesthetic, it’s effort. It’s planning, timing, and energy management. It’s working around a body that doesn’t always cooperate and a world that doesn’t always accommodate. It’s not just let’s go for a walk. Do I have what I need? How long can I stay? What will this cost me later?

That’s active.

Leslie smiling in heart-shaped sunglasses and a pink cap while relaxing outdoors, with a wooden fence and colorful flip-flops hanging behind her.

Active is choosing to go anyway. It’s sitting by the water and letting your nervous system exhale for the first time all day. It’s feeling the breeze and thinking, "Okay, maybe today isn't a bad day." It’s laughing at something small and realizing your whole mood just shifted.

View from behind Leslie, showing her blonde and pink hair pulled into a messy bun as she faces the ocean on a sunny beach day. Gentle waves roll in under a clear blue sky in the background.

It’s letting your iced coffee sweat in your hand while you soak up a little bit of life.

And yes, I have days where I walk around the grocery store or a department store, and I count that as active for the week, because it is. Sometimes, active looks like cleaning my room, changing my sheets, doing just enough to make my space feel like a soft place to land again.

Cleaning my room. Girl, that’s cardio.

Vacuuming is a bonus level unlocked. There are no extra lives in this game, so proceed at your own risk.

Can I tell you a secret?

I think I would’ve been a runner. Not in a look at me, I just did five miles kind of way, but in a quiet, steady, headphones in, chasing a feeling kind of way. The kind where your thoughts start to untangle, and your body finds a rhythm that feels like freedom.

And let’s be honest, I would’ve had the whole aesthetic too. Cute workout set, matching everything, ponytail swinging, fully ignoring the world like I have somewhere important to be other than my own thoughts.

And maybe, in a different life, that’s what active would have looked like for me.

But in this life, it looks different. And different doesn’t mean less.

I’ve always loved the water. I could swim before I could walk, and there’s something about being in it that still feels like home. Weightless. Free. Like my body and the world finally agree on something.

I love swimming because it lets me meet a version of myself I don’t always get to be on land. The girl who runs. The girl who signs herself up for things like water aerobics, burpees, and step classes like it just part of her routine.

And for a second, in the water, I am her.

But it’s more than that. It reminds me that active isn’t one thing. It’s not one version of a body or one way of moving. It’s whatever lets you feel strong, free, and like yourself.

Leslie smiling in a small blue inflatable pool, wearing a teal “Free Britney” hat, with colorful floats and a pink flamingo behind her.

Active can look like that, too.

It can look like the tingly, sun-soaked feeling settling into your skin, the kind that makes you feel alive in your own body again, like the sunlight reached somewhere deeper than just the surface.

It can look like simply being present in your own life, even if it doesn’t match anyone else’s version of productivity.

I love romanticizing my life. Not in some big, dramatic, everything is perfect kind of way, but in the quiet moments that would be easy to overlook. The way my drink tastes a little better when I’m outside. The way the light hits at just the right angle. The way a slow moment can feel full if I let it. It’s choosing to notice, to soften, to enjoy what’s right in front of me instead of rushing past it. It’s letting the little things feel like enough.

And here’s something else that makes outside feel a little more possible now. There’s new assistive technology, like all-terrain chairs, opening up spaces that used to feel off-limits. Beaches. Trails. Parks. Places that weren’t built with accessibility in mind are slowly becoming places we can actually experience.

And that matters.

Leslie is smiling in an all-terrain chair by the ocean.

Because everyone deserves the feeling of sun on their skin and space to just be.

Living on the coast has taught me that outside doesn’t have to be extreme to be meaningful. It can be the sound of water moving steady and unbothered. The way the sky shows off at sunset, like it knows it’s being watched. A quiet moment where nothing is expected of you except to be there. That counts.

You don’t have to earn the right to be outside. You don’t have to perform actively to deserve fresh air. You don’t have to push yourself to exhaustion just to say you did something.

Sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is simply show up to your own life.

Leslie with pink and blonde hair in a bun, looking at an outdoor booth display with shells and samples, while children stand nearby at a sunny festival.

Step outside. Sit down. Look around. Stay a while.

So from one sun-chasing girl to another, go outside for a few minutes today. I don’t care if it’s the beach, your front porch, or a quick little trip to your luxury backyard resort.

Take a cup of ice water. Remember to hydrate.

Stand there. Sit there. Walk there. Roll there. I don’t care.

Soak up some sun, sip something cute, and call it active.

I promise, it counts.

Leslie sitting on the beach in a chair, smiling and holding a drink beside her under a clear blue sky.

And if the world doesn’t recognize that as active, maybe the definition was never made with us in mind anyway.

So go ahead. Redefine it.

Because being active isn’t about how it looks. It’s about the fact that you chose to be there at all.

And maybe that’s what this season is really about for me.

Not proving anything. Not performing anything.

Just returning to myself in the sunlight.

Letting the warmth soften what felt tight. Letting the light reach places I forgot needed it. Trusting that simply being here is enough.

Call it active. Call it healing. Call it whatever you want. I’ll be outside! glowing through it. Sun goddess energy, fully activated ☀️✨

You see these pictures and think they are different versions of me, but they’re all from the same season, the same life, the same me, just a little different each time. Some seasons I look thinner or chubbier, lighter or darker, but it’s still me in every frame. The sun is the same, but something in me shifts, a softer breath, a steadier glow, a quiet kind of becoming. I didn’t become someone new; I grew into myself. Again and again, in the same light, learning how to shine without asking permission, learning how to be fully, gently, unmistakably me.