I used to think I’d still be in the same place by now — carrying the same ache, living inside the same numbness toward my own life. Not careless in the reckless sense, but careless in the way where you feel like nothing matters, where pain feels like the only possible outcome. I truly believed I’d still be stuck there. But I’m not.
Somewhere along the way, hope slipped in. Faith built roots. And strength — a quiet, unshaken strength — showed up even in the moments when I felt undone.
December has a way of making patterns impossible to ignore.
Not just for me. For everyone.
It’s the month that exposes how comfortable you are (or aren’t) with your own company. The month where darkness creeps in early — 4 p.m. feels like midnight — and suddenly there’s nowhere to hide from the truth of your patterns. Snow days, early nights, canceled plans, the world slowing down… it all forces you back into orbit with yourself.
And when life gets quiet enough, you start to hear yourself again.
In that silence, we’re given an uncomfortable gift:
a chance to look at our lives honestly.
To notice the things we admire.
To notice the things that ache quietly.
To notice the parts of ourselves we’ve avoided all year.
December reflects back the moments that have shaped us — our shortcomings, the promises we didn’t keep, the versions of ourselves we chased, and the ones we abandoned. It can feel like standing in an endless carousel of “I should have…” and “I wish I had…” and “Why didn’t I…?”
It can be grief.
It can be clarity.
Sometimes it’s both at the same time.
This year, for the first time in a long time, my December mirror is gentle. It’s honest, but it isn’t cruel. It’s reflective, but not punishing. There is still a huge part of me carrying grief — grief that I’m learning how to live with — but overall, this year has been good. Peaceful, even.
And if your mirror isn’t positive, that’s okay too.
It does not mean you failed.
It does not mean you should punish yourself for not being who you thought you’d be by now.
Becoming was never meant to be linear. That’s the whole point.
I’ve had years where December showed me a stranger.
Years where I looked in the mirror and thought, girl, who the hell are you?
Years where it felt like something inside me had shattered and no one noticed but me.
But I’ve also had years like this one — where December feels like a gentle return instead of a harsh evaluation. Where the reflection looking back at me is someone I’m proud of, someone I fought to become.
A Philosophical Turn: The Mirror as an Invitation
So let me ask you — not to call you out, but to call you into yourself:
What is your December mirror showing you?
Not the version you perform.
Not the version the world assigns you.
Not the version your survival sculpted.
You. Now. Here. As you are.
What truths surface when everything around you gets quiet?
Which patterns keep circling back?
What feels like a bruise you keep touching, hoping it’ll hurt less this time?
And what feels like a softness you didn’t know you were allowed to have?
December doesn’t judge — it reveals.
And in that revelation, you get a chance to begin again, even before the year ends.
Because reflection isn’t about who you were supposed to be.
It’s about who you’re becoming, and whether you’re brave enough to look.
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