Random Observation #300,298,754

Year-End Signals

This time of year always pulls at me in two directions. There’s the part of me that’s still figuring out how to walk through December without flinching. Grief doesn’t circle dates on a calendar, but my body somehow remembers anyway. So while everyone else is swapping travel plans and holiday playlists, I’m moving through the days with a small echo in my chest. Present enough to function, not always present enough to feel.

And yet, life is good. Really good. I catch myself smiling at small things I would’ve rushed past a few years ago. The way my mornings land softer now. How the people in my life feel aligned instead of accidental. Even the quiet has a different tone. I’m not floating above my life anymore; I’m in it, even when my mind drifts back to what I’ve lost.

I can hold both: the ache and the optimism. The memory and the momentum. I don’t need to force a neat lesson out of it. I just know that 2026 doesn’t feel like a promise, it feels like a doorway. Something I’ll step into with steadier hands and a little more breath in my lungs. Not because everything is perfect, but because I’m finally learning how to live with the weight and still move toward the light…

while the year winds down and I do my best to stay open,

Brian