What December brings to the surface
by Priscarina S.T. · Borneo Post OnlineSOMETIMES the hardest part of being human is just saying how we really feel.
Emotions get tangled, words get stuck, and before we know it, we are overthinking not just what we feel, but what everyone else might be thinking too.
It always seems to hit harder at the end of the year.
December has a way of exposing something we rarely talk about openly – how uncomfortable many of us still are with our own feelings, even as we are expected to be grateful and festive.
Maybe it’s the slower nights, the Christmas lights everywhere, or the way December somehow makes you reflective whether you want to be or not.
One minute you are buying gifts or wrapping at 1am, and the next you are quietly questioning the whole year – what changed, what didn’t, and how you ended up here.
This season has a way of pulling things to the surface.
Feelings you have been avoiding all year suddenly want your attention.
Things you meant to say, but didn’t.
People you miss more than you expected.
And then there is the quieter kind of sadness – missing year-end gatherings you really wanted to be at; family dinners you pictured yourself sitting through; friends you promised you would see ‘when things slow down’.
Sometimes it is work that won’t pause, and deadlines that don’t care about holidays.
Sometimes it’s looking at flight prices and realising going home just isn’t possible this year – not because you don’t want to be there, but because you can’t be in two places at once.
It hurts in a way that is hard to explain – loving people deeply, yet having to love them from a distance.
And honestly, the hardest truth isn’t about anyone else – it is facing your own feelings.
Sometimes it’s pride. Sometimes it’s the fear. Sometimes it’s just not wanting to be a burden.
But how we feel matters, even the messy and confusing parts.
Ignoring them does not make them disappear; it only delays the moment they demand to be felt.
If opening up feels scary, start small. Be honest with yourself first.
No fixing. No judging. Just noticing.
You don’t need to label everything or make sense of it right away.
The goal isn’t to be ‘good’ at feelings – it’s just to let them exist.
Because pretending you’re fine when you’re not usually catches up to you.
It shows up as tiredness, irritation, distance, or that heavy feeling you can’t explain but can’t ignore either.
I used to avoid feelings by overthinking them. I would explain them away before they even had a chance to land.
If I could understand ‘why’ I felt something, maybe I wouldn’t have to actually feel it.
It worked for a while – until it didn’t.
Turns out, feelings don’t disappear just because you are good at avoiding them.
They wait, and when they finally show up, they are louder and harder to ignore.
One quiet comfort for me this year has been reading ‘Before the Coffee Gets Cold’ by Toshikazu Kawaguchi.
It is one of those books that feels like sitting in a café on a slow evening – gentle, reflective, and a little emotional in the best way.
Each story is simple, but that is what makes it hit.
People are given a chance to revisit moments they wish had gone differently, not to change everything, but to say what they couldn’t say back then.
The book does not promise happy endings or big fixes.
Instead, it offers something gentler – understanding, closure, and honesty.
One line really stayed with me: “Water flows from high places to low places. That is the nature of gravity. Emotions also seem to act according to gravity…the truth just wants to come flowing out.”
It made me think about how often we try to hold things in, especially with feelings.
We tell ourselves it’s not the right time, or that it’s not important enough, or that we will deal with it later.
But emotions don’t really work that way.
They don’t want to be analysed or justified – they want to be felt.
What I love most about the story is that the time travel is not about fixing the past. No one comes back with a perfect outcome.
What changes is how the characters understand themselves and their feelings. And somehow, that is enough.
It is a quiet reminder that you don’t need to have everything figured out.
You don’t need the perfect words or the perfect moment.
Being honest, with yourself or with someone else, already counts as progress.
As the year wraps up – with family gatherings, catch-up messages, and those ‘we should do this more often’ conversations – the feeling that seems to sit underneath everything is love.
And love, at least to me, does not feel loud or dramatic. It feels steady, and it stays even when emotions shift, and even when we don’t always say things perfectly.
Sharing how we feel is not easy.
Sometimes the words come out wrong. Sometimes they come out late. Sometimes they stay stuck in our heads.
But love is not fragile. It does not disappear just because we hesitate or stumble over our words.
Perhaps the real work, as the year closes, is allowing ourselves to be a little more honest than we were before – with others, and especially with ourselves.
That kind of honesty may not solve everything, but it softens the weight we carry into the New Year.
Wishing you a warm, gentle Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
• The writer is a psychology graduate who enjoys sharing about how the human mind views the world. For feedback, email to priscarinast@theborneopost.com.