The Soft Ending

December arrived abruptly this year, but with a soft culmination that asked me to sit still long enough to hear myself again. This is the first time in a long time that I haven’t felt the need to finish strong or push toward some imagined version of completion. Instead, I feel myself choosing a gentler exit from the year. A slow drift, if you will, like a steady unwinding.

I used to believe that at the end of the year, I needed to prove something. I would stack goals, deadlines, and expectations on top of each other and call it the final push. But this year I’m not feeling it. To be honest, I’m exhausted. I’m learning that my body holds that honesty before my mind even does. This exhaustion carries its own language, and the clarity it brings only arrives after everything quiets down.

There were moments this year that I am absolutely proud of, and there were moments that drained me in ways I didn’t expect, like work that stretched me thin or rooms that demanded more of me than they were willing to give. Then slowly, there was a growing awareness that the life I’m building cannot be sustained by constant motion. It needs space and breath. It needs stillness.

Now, stillness has never been my first instinct, but it has become my greatest teacher. It shows me that growth is not always loud or visible. Sometimes it looks like saying less! Sometimes it feels like stepping back, or choosing rest instead of proving that you can handle one more thing. Stillness teaches me that I don’t have to earn my way into alignment; I only have to allow it.

What this year revealed is that what pulls me out of myself in turn brings me back. It showed the difference between what I do because I feel called to it and what I do out of habit, expectation, or pressure. It revealed the places where I went missing inside my own life, and the practices that helped me return. So I’m choosing to let this year end softly. I’m not trying to tie up loose ends or make meaning out of everything that happened. I have no urge to define the year or categorize it. All I know is that it was a good one and a revealing one in all the best ways! Some chapters need to close without ceremony. Some lessons need time to settle, and clarity then arrives after the year has already turned. Now, how graceful is that?!

I’m declaring that a soft ending is not a sign of weakness, though it is a choice and a boundary. It’s a recognition of what deserves your energy and what no longer does.

So, in the midst of propaganda to close the year out strong, I am letting the year close at its own pace; present for it all and reflecting on what a transformative year it’s been. I’m choosing to sit with that and let myself rest inside the truth of everything it revealed, while looking forward to 2026.