Reflecting Back and Looking Ahead

Here we are, past Thanksgiving, Chanukah, and Christmas, inching closer to 2026.

If you have an emotional hangover, you're not alone. Between bracing for grief's ache, navigating which gatherings to attend or decline, wrestling with guilt either way, sorting through traditions both old and new, and realizing you're still learning what it means to make space for both grief and joy—all while swimming through an endless stream of "merry and bright"—it's been a lot.​

If you're lucky enough to have some space to breathe now, to show yourself kindness, I hope you will.

If you're not so lucky, we see you. Life doesn't stop for grief. Plenty of us claw through the holidays, surviving waves of sorrow while creating magic for others, then show up at work the next morning without even a moment to catch our breath.

And now, without a pause between surviving the longest night and the hardest holidays, suddenly you're being told it's time for vision boards, resolutions, and the "new year, new me" rhetoric that descends every January.

The Problem with "New Year, New Me"

New years never once created a "new me." In fact, only grief has done that. In my lowest years, my catchphrase was more like: "new year, same grief."

Plus, maybe I don't want a "new me". Maybe I want the old me - the me before this loss. The me who was with you when you were still alive.

For those reasons and more, I revolted against New Year's season years ago. A new year often meant moving further from a past I longed for and people I'd lost. It suggested I should pick myself apart and trade myself in for a new model. I love a good NYE celebration, but the rest of it? I decided I could do without, so I did. I ignored the jargon, sometimes the holiday altogether, and embraced the truth that nothing really changes between December 31 and January 1. It's just one sleep. The rest is hype.

But lately, I've rewritten my relationship with New Year's.

Don't get me wrong—I still hate the aspirational nonsense. It's laughable that the dead of winter would be ideal for self-improvement (at least here in the dark, icy northern hemisphere). Not to mention that I absolutely hate when we're all made to feel that life is some big self-improvement project. But I've come around to the idea that there's value in pausing to examine where I've come from, where I am, and where I'm going. I've slowly embraced that the hardest years can be teachers, but only if we pause to ask what they have to teach. Time alone doesn't teach us anything, nor does pain. The learning comes from examination and in rebuilding—asking hard questions about what's serving us and what isn't, and how that shapes who we're becoming. This becomes critical when the future seems hopeless and blurry. Especially then.

Learning from the Hard Seasons

The analogy that comes to mind: imagine you've moved from a warm climate to somewhere with deep, dark, snowy winters for the first time. That first winter will be brutal, even if locals say it's mild. You'll realize you'd heard about hard winters but couldn't really know them until you hadn't seen grass in three months. You'll learn that certain cold-weather gear you bought was useless, while things you neglected turned out to be crucial.

But the real learning comes when you sit down to reflect and integrate. To think back on the hardest parts, consider what went well and what didn't, to marvel at your own survival, and ask what you wish you'd done more or less of. To make notes on how your perspective has changed and how you'd prepare differently next time.

The thing is, even with all that reflection, learning from hard seasons doesn't make the next season simple. The next winter might throw entirely new challenges. Less snow, more ice. Different problems. You'll still need to learn new things. You'll need to relearn things you learned and forgot. You'll still struggle. But reflection helps every season to inform the next, and that is never a bad thing.

Your Grief Season

So this is my gentle nudge to consider how the grief season you've been in recently will inform the season you're moving into. What are you holding onto and what are you putting down? What served you and what didn't? How did you help yourself and how did you get in your own way? How will it all shape this person you're becoming, in a future you're moving into, whether you like it or not, whether you can envision it or not?

You don't have to do this at the turn of the calendar year. Do it whenever feels right: as seasons change, on your birthday, any time that calls to you.

But even this reformed new-years-cynic has come to think there is something poetic about reflection following the winter solstice—the shortest day and longest night. When we've been in the longest, darkest nights, maybe that's a good time to consider how we've been surviving and what we'll put down or carry with us as the days lengthen again.

We invite you to share your comments and questions with the WYG community in the discussion section below.