You’re Not Falling Apart. It’s December.
A holiday reflection for people doing their best
The holidays have a way of messing with people who are otherwise doing fine.
You can be steady all year and still feel off in December. Your routines get disrupted. Your sleep changes. Your body holds more than usual. Old emotions surface without warning—at the grocery store, in the car, halfway through a conversation you didn’t expect to be hard.
This isn’t weakness. It’s chemistry.
The holidays create a different internal environment. More stimulation. More memory. More expectation. More absence. Your nervous system is processing all of it at once—past and present sharing the same space.
Most people don’t realize how much they rely on small rituals to stay regulated until the season interrupts them. The coffee before anyone else wakes up. The quiet moment alone. The familiar order of things. When one of those disappears, the day can tilt.
Not because you’re dramatic.
Because your system noticed.
You are participating in creation whether you mean to or not. Every breath alters your internal landscape. Every thought changes the conditions inside your body. Anxiety tightens things. Honesty loosens them. Suppression dries the soil. Presence makes it workable again.
This isn’t about “thinking positive.”
It’s about being accurate.
A lot of people push themselves through the holidays pretending they’re fine when they’re actually tired, grieving, overwhelmed, or quietly disappointed. That disconnect costs energy. Being real—even privately—returns it.
This is where people tend to get stuck on the idea of failure.
The end of the year invites accounting. What worked. What didn’t. What you thought would be different by now. It’s easy to turn that reflection into self-punishment.
Johnny Cash said it simply: you build on failure or you build in it.
Most people aren’t failures. They’re people who kept going through things they didn’t plan for.
The holidays bring the past closer. Old dynamics reappear. Old versions of yourself show up. Memories knock at the door when you’re already tired. Empty chairs are louder this time of year. So are expectations you no longer fit.
If you’re feeling that, you’re not regressing. You’re noticing.
The past doesn’t come back to ruin the present. It shows up because this is when you finally slow down enough to hear it.
You don’t need to exile it. You don’t need to fix it. And you definitely don’t need to relive it.
Think of the past like something that still needs care—but not control.
Most of the exhaustion people feel during the holidays comes from vigilance. From monitoring old wounds. From bracing for reactions. From managing memories instead of letting them pass through.
You don’t have to stay on watch.
The past isn’t going anywhere.
But it doesn’t need to stay awake.
So here’s something realistic you can try this season—not aspirational, not perfect:
Let one thing rest.
One story you don’t replay.
One expectation you don’t meet.
One ritual you keep just for yourself.
That’s enough.
You don’t need to resolve the year. You don’t need to make meaning out of everything. You don’t need to be grateful or broken. You just need to be present enough to feel where you actually are.
Let the past go to bed.
Let your body soften a little.
Let the season be what it is.
You’re not behind.
You’re not failing.
You’re still here.
That counts.