Every December, I get this tug in my chest to slow down. It’s not because I suddenly become more serene (I’m as frazzled as ever), but because something in me knows the year deserves to be honored. Not a big production or a color-coded overhaul — just a pause. A chance to gather up the small lights I missed while rushing.
I have historically barreled through December like the final obstacle in a long, exhausting triathlon: finish Q4, host the dinners, juggle the emotions (mine and everyone’s), micromanage the holidays, tumble into the new year overextended and under-rested. But the older I get, the more I understand this:
If I don’t slow down long enough to notice my own life, it will pass me by entirely. I don’t want to have executed my life more thoroughly than I enjoyed it. Management is not the same as engagement.
So before I leap into a shiny new calendar, I try to look back with reflection, not regret.
Reflection isn’t replaying every mistake or reciting the things we wish we’d done differently. That’s a different energy. Reflection is the tender practice of noticing what actually was: what grew, what healed, what cracked open, what came undone, what still aches a little. We look with kindness on this year of life and choose to hold our own story with gentle hands. It is how we collect the light of the year. Everything that glowed, the things that dimmed, what flickered back to life unexpectedly, what still needs some kindling.
This isn’t an exhaustive list or meant to be exhausting. Rather, a compassionate audit we might practice for a best friend or beloved child who needs a loving mirror for 2025. So this December, I’m lighting candles for reflection and anticipation. I’m asking gentle questions instead of demanding hard resolutions.
- What part of me woke up this year?
- What light surfaced that I don’t want to lose track of?
- What truth will I carry with me into the brightness of a new year?
These questions feel like enough, darlings.
My answers in part look something like this:
1. I really woke up to agency over my own story this year. Without getting too in the weeds, I repeatedly held a quiet firm boundary without explaining myself, defending my work, or managing someone else’s discomfort. Codependent no more, indeed. THIS IS HUGE FOR ME.
2. This is hard to describe, but I feel like I was the most myself this year. I wasn’t angling, or positioning, or messaging, or controlling, or most of the Enneagram 3 traits I drift toward to make sure everyone is thinking of me how I want them to. I didn’t feel manic. I was (mostly) okay with being misunderstood or even mischaracterized. I was just myself. It felt good.
3. Truth to carry into 2026: love is always the right choice. Being on the right side of humanity and dignity and justice and goodness is right. I will not be gaslit into believing that hate is actually “tough love” and Jesus is into it. Like Bishop Curry tells me: “If it ain’t of love, it ain’t of God.” Period.
Advent helps me remember this. The waiting. The candles. The long nights that make us hunger for brightness. Advent is not about rushing toward Christmas or pretending everything is fine; it’s about paying attention while we wait. It’s trusting that something sacred is still being born, even in the dark, even in us. Every candle is a tiny ritual of reclamation, a bit of light gathered against the long night.
And when I turn toward the new year, I feel another invitation rising: to look forward with anticipation, not anxiety. We don’t have to muscle our way into January. We don’t have to build a “new me” from scratch like some extreme makeover of the soul. I want a quiet optimism looking forward, because renewal isn’t about self-improvement but remembering what’s already true.
We don’t need a total reinvention. Maybe we just need to return to ourselves again — to the parts that woke up this year, to the wisdom we earned, to the light we’ve been quietly gathering.
Gathering the light quietly and imperfectly is the real ritual. Maybe honest, generous reflection is the renewal. This life, as unfinished and ordinary as it sometimes feels, is worth honoring.
That, to me, is December’s work. That is Advent’s whisper. Join me.
