Many of us have a complicated relationship with this season. One moment we’re touched by the warmth of it all – the smell of something cooking, familiar music, traditions that feel like anchors. The next, we’re rolling our eyes at the commercial noise, the pressure to perform festivity, the endless invitations or, for some, the absence of them. There’s the message: it’s all about family and connection, and yet for many it also surfaces tension, distance, unfinished conversations or longing.
It can be beautiful. And overwhelming. Comforting and exhausting. Sacred and commercial. Sometimes all on the same day.
For some of us, this time of year brings anchoring – ritual, belonging, laughter and familiarity. For others, it quietly exposes the ache beneath the surface: the person no longer here, the year that didn’t unfold as hoped, the relationship that never found its rhythm.
And truthfully, most of us live somewhere between those realities – joy and ache, celebration and reflection, connection and loneliness. It’s rarely one or the other.
I’ve come to think of these last weeks as a threshold – a doorway between the year that has shaped us and the one we haven’t yet stepped into. Not quite finished, not yet beginning. A time that invites honesty – not the harsh kind, but the gentle kind. The kind that asks: What mattered? What carried me? What changed me?
Kierkegaard wrote,
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
December sits quietly between those two directions.
We hear a lot about reinvention – New Year, New You – as though change happens on command. But meaningful change rarely arrives with fireworks. It comes slowly, through small decisions, through truth-telling, through noticing what we’re ready to release.
A few months ago, sitting with a notebook and a lukewarm pastel de nata, I expected to write a list of achievements. Instead, I wrote three lines:
What has strengthened me?
What has softened me?
What has changed me?
What came next wasn’t a list of accomplishments. It was small, human moments. A kindness I didn’t expect. A moment in a session when someone found the strength to say something they’d avoided for years – and even though their voice shook, they stayed with the truth. And then I thought of all the people I work with – their courage, their humour, their tenderness, their ache. Our lives touch each other in quiet ways. And there were days where grief and tenderness sat side by side, and neither needed to win. Suddenly, the year felt fuller – not because it was tidy, but because it was real.
And of course, like many of you, I’ve also had moments this year where I’ve been held up by others – often unexpectedly. A neighbour who stopped to talk. A friend who noticed the change in my voice before I did. A stranger whose small kindness softened a difficult day. Sometimes connection isn’t loud or dramatic – it’s simply the reminder that we exist in someone’s awareness. We are shaped by the communities around us – chosen family, chance encounters, and the people who let us witness their hardest truths. We influence each other more than we realise. In a world that can feel rushed or divided, that mutual impact feels worth honouring.
We measure life in outcomes. But we feel it in moments.
A small reflective practice: The Five Senses of the Year
Take just one moment — no analysis, no overthinking:
What did I see this year that stayed with me?
What did I hear that I needed?
What did I hold that mattered?
What did I taste or smell that reminded me I was still alive?
What emotion surprised me?
Let the answers land. Nothing else is required.
Sometimes, when I sit with people in therapy, I’m reminded that endings and beginnings rarely arrive cleanly. They overlap. One chapter fades while another quietly forms. The heart doesn’t follow the calendar; it follows truth, readiness, courage, and sometimes exhaustion. And that’s okay. There’s no rule that says we must arrive in January fixed, focused or full of direction. Sometimes the most honest beginning is simply admitting: I’m still in the middle of it.
If this year has felt heavy, uncertain or unfinished, you haven’t failed – you’ve been living. And if it’s been joyful, expansive or surprising, let yourself recognise that too. Both deserve space. Both are real.
Letting go isn’t something we force. It happens when something in us recognises: this no longer needs to be carried.
As Irvin Yalom writes,
“The ultimate cure is found in facing what cannot be changed.”
Not fixing it. Not decorating it. Simply facing it. So, instead of resolutions this year, maybe one question is enough:
What do I want to make space for?
Beginnings don’t always announce themselves. Sometimes they arrive quietly – a softer thought, a deeper breath, a moment of honesty, the faint sense that something inside is shifting.
Rilke wrote,
“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.”
So here we are – human, imperfect, becoming. May the end of this year meet you gently. And may the next one open — slowly, steadily — with possibility.
Also read Farah Naz’s last month’s article: The part that stays
