Sweet December

Culminating a month-long reflection on the passage of time.

On a quest to freeze moments.

If you’re sitting on a beach, sans kids, sipping a paloma, I salute you. You’re doing life right.

If you’re stuck in staycation mode with a couple of food-guzzling, six-seven-chanting Demon Hunter addicts, desperately vying for it to be 2026 already, I see you. I feel you. I am you. The finish line is close, guys!

I’m never truly ready for the chaos that is December with children, a seemingly endless marathon of family hosting, school recitals, Target checkout lines, holiday spirit pursuits, and alcohol-fueled adult events that cumulatively leave you with blurry memories and a burgeoning credit card statement. This December in particular, said chaos was layered with a sense of anxiety and inner turmoil that even my neurotic self wasn’t familiar with.

I blame it on my birthday. While most people get to space their mental crises into two annual doses, we winter birthday people get hit with a double serving of angst, especially when it involves transitioning into the last year of a particular decade. This year, I celebrated my thirty-ninth birthday with an all-day itinerary that involved parasailing with our daughter (talk about an anxiety inducer), a lunch with my family, and a fun little party at Barceloneta, a spot that feels like the Miami version of a Parisian terrace. I miss the casual freedom of European evenings so much, but let’s not digress.

Ironically, after this endurance test of a day (i.e., an obvious coerced effort to feel young), I actually felt old, or at least older, for the very first time. It wasn’t physical, although I was completely wiped from the ridiculous roster of plans. It wasn’t vanity-driven either, as I feel pretty good in my body and my Dysport spruced face. Trite as it sounds, the sentiment was linked to the age itself, which seemed to set off a wailing siren in my mind. The last time I had heard said siren was upon turning 29, when I had decided I had exactly one year to publish a book and find a husband. (The latter mission resulted in me spending the following holidays in Asia with a certified lunatic, which later became the highlight of my book. The irony!)

It’s not just the number itself that sent me spiraling, but what it suddenly illuminated about the passage of time. Somehow, half of my family is rounding a milestone age in 2026. I’m turning 40. Dave, whom I met as a carefree 42-year-old New York bachelor, is turning 50. My daughter is turning five. My baby, who just yesterday was but a spontaneous desire on a mountain in Èze, is turning one. My father is turning 80, a number that leaves me short of breath when I have a moment to assess its gravity. My nephew is turning 30, while my 27-year-old niece recently got engaged (and will likely get married before I do!). It’s discombobulating to see them not as kids but as peers, our age gap narrowing with each passing year. It’s jarring to face the fact that the life you know now won’t last forever, that people will grow and people will go. It keeps you up at 3 a.m. in a quiet state of dread, desperate to cling to today as your mind races far off into the future.

I can hear the sirens all around me, reverberating from peers who are experiencing the same realizations. Some are so entrenched in new motherhood that their sirens are subdued, muted for a few years until they suddenly have space to think and feel. For others, it’s deafening, pushing them into motion. They are transforming physically (all hail GLP-1!), embarking on spiritual journeys, taking on new hobbies and extreme sports, or finding some other happy place under the sun. They are launching companies or going back to school to start new career journeys, reassessing ambitions and lives that once felt settled. Some are evaluating decisions they made years ago that no longer serve them, quietly questioning who they’ve been and who they still want to become. The divorce era is gently, almost imperceptibly, descending upon us, as people make brave moves around how they want to spend the second half of their lives.

With only one year left until 40, I, too, am beginning to yearn for my metamorphosis. In the rare moments of silence, I can feel it somewhere deep inside me, a faint tremor that might one day set off an explosion. And yet, just nine months after having my son, I’m still too raw, too unmoored, to fully understand its trajectory. In fact, I’m scrambling for mental space to put these thoughts on the page, as my mind splinters into a million directions: the nanny’s question about baby food, the newsletter for my partner’s business, the Zara holiday sale where I need to buy my daughter a new wardrobe, the Amazon delivery #93984392. I’m still adjusting to the pace of my new role as the head of a bigger household, learning how to juggle two children at different stages while keeping a home afloat and managing a small but important workload for my partner. In short, I have little time for a metamorphosis.

Part of me knows I shouldn’t rush. Of all the incredible things my baby has given me, the most valuable is a deeper understanding of how precious time is. These moments with small children are quick and irreversible—once they pass, they’re gone for good. The life I’m living is the one I always dreamed of, and I want to be fully present for it. I want to stop the clock. I want to kiss my baby’s tiny cheeks. I want to savor every moment with my parents and my children together. I don’t want to run off into the future.

And yet, there’s a quiet voice that keeps nudging me, reminding me that there’s likely more to me than being a number two to my partner or a professional Zara Kids shopper. I want to begin exploring who she is, in real time.

A close friend, a mother of two who never stops moving forward, recently told me about “three-foot tosses” in manifestation. It’s the idea of focusing on small, manageable actions that feel achievable rather than aspirational (i.e., tossing the ball only three feet forward). These small steps are meant to build confidence and consistency, creating routines that slowly compound into meaningful change. Unlike classic manifestation, you don’t need a fully formed vision of where you want to go; instead, you simply need to know how you want to feel. As you move toward those feelings, the larger picture often reveals itself organically. In a way, this approach prevents you from limiting yourself to the things you know and opens you up to bigger possibilities, some of which you might not have considered in the first place.

As we cross into the new year, I’m trying out three-foot tosses over resolutions. More than anything, I want to feel focused and centered in my day-to-day. I also want to feel strong in my body, connected with my family, and inspired in my work.

I resolve to sit with my eyes closed (i.e., “meditate”) for ten minutes each morning.

To write something every day, because otherwise I unravel.

To block off four hours a week for a project I’ve been dragging on for years.

To spend a full uninterrupted hour with my son every afternoon and always read him a bedtime story.

To cut out social media for the month of January and establish firm limits with it going forward.

To stop raising my voice at my partner and daughter.

To read one book a month.

To take a Kabbalah class.

And so on.

This is where I’m landing, at least for now. Not in a grand reinvention or a vital pivot, but in the quiet commitment to staying present while inching forward. Maybe transforming doesn’t have to be fast and dramatic to be real, and change can coexist with messiness, fatigue, and true happiness. Maybe this year isn’t about exploding into something new, but about laying careful, deliberate groundwork for who I’m becoming next. A limitless future, one three-foot toss at a time.