Letting Things Go Before the New Year
Everyone talks about “letting go” like it’s this peaceful, cinematic moment where you release all your stress into the wind and suddenly feel lighter. Meanwhile, in real life, letting go usually looks more like standing in the kitchen at 11 p.m. thinking, “Okay… but how do I actually stop caring about this?”
December has a funny way of forcing this conversation. It’s the end of the year, everything’s busy, everyone’s overstimulated, and suddenly we all feel pressure to transform into the calmest, most healed version of ourselves by January 1st. As if a new calendar magically wipes our brains.
For us, letting go hasn’t been a neat, inspirational process. It’s been more like:
noticing we’re spiraling about something tiny
realizing we don’t have the energy to spiral
and choosing to just… not.
(And then laughing at ourselves later, because wow, we were really about to have a meltdown over something that did not deserve that level of drama.)
Work has been a big part of this. Jess and I are both in that stage of life where you can practically hear your job tapping you on the shoulder every five minutes like, “Hey, how do you do this? Also, there’s a problem with the software I can’t connect, can you help? By the way the kitchen is on fire. Oh and ten new emails just came in.”
When you’re wired to be responsible, and suddenly you become the ‘important’ coworker, it’s really hard to let something slide without feeling like the world might collapse. And when you’re a perfectionist? Forget it. Letting go feels like failure, even when it’s just… being human.
But this December, we’re trying to do it anyway — not in a dramatic, “I’m releasing everything that no longer serves me” way, but in a small, realistic way. Like:
letting go of doing everything ourselves
letting go of quietly fixing everything in the background
letting go of the idea that every task has to be done perfectly or it “doesn’t count”
letting go of guilt for being tired (because honestly? Everyone is tired)
Letting go before the new year isn’t about becoming a brand-new person. It’s more about clearing a little mental space just enough to actually enjoy the parts of life that don’t make it onto your to-do list. The small things. The fun things. The “I actually have capacity for this” things.
So if December feels heavy or chaotic, maybe let something go. Not everything. Not dramatically. Just one thing that you’re tired of carrying. One thing that probably doesn’t need as much of your energy as it’s been getting.
We’re doing the same, imperfectly, awkwardly, sometimes with a mini rant first - but doing it.
