There are things we carry into the new year not because they help us grow, but because they’ve become familiar. They feel like home base, even when home base is uncomfortable.

We all bring something into the New Year—habits, patterns, beliefs, fears, relationships, expectations, unfinished healing, unfinished conversations, and unfinished growth.

The real work is deciding what actually deserves to come with us. Because not everything does.

This is the part of winter no one talks about — the in-between. The space where you’re not closing the year anymore, but you haven’t stepped into the next one either.

It’s quiet, almost uncomfortably so, and it has a way of bringing up things you didn’t exactly schedule time for.