The new year arrives whether we are ready or not. It shows up boldly on the calendar, carrying expectations that we grievers often find off-putting or even offensive—fresh starts, renewed energy, established goals, a sense of forward motion. But our grief doesn’t work on a schedule. The calendar changes oblivious to our protests. Grief doesn’t disappear at midnight—it simply comes with us.

For many of us, January can feel less like a beginning and more like a harsh reminder that time keeps moving even while we are raw and still learning how to breathe in this changed world.

Grief also reshapes our relationship with time itself. We may feel as if we’re living simultaneously in multiple realities—remembering the past, functioning in the present, and grieving a future that no longer exists as we imagined it. This doesn’t mean that we are stuck. It means that we are navigating layered time, doing the quiet, complex work of holding love and loss together.

Please be kind to yourself as you remember this…

If you made it into this new year, you did so carrying weight that most people never see. That matters, even if it goes unrecognized.

In a season that celebrates transformation, it’s worth acknowledging that we are not required to be different just because the year changed. There is no obligation to feel stronger, wiser, or more hopeful than we did in December. Sometimes stability is the goal. Sometimes staying the same—still loving, still missing, still showing up in whatever ways we can—is an act of care.

Permission to remain exactly where we are is not giving up—it is meeting reality with honesty.

The new year can also be a time to name what grief is not. It is not something to rush. It is not a problem to solve or a lesson we must extract. It is not a failure if certain days still knock the wind out of us. And it is not our job to make others comfortable with our loss. Choosing what we will no longer force—explanations, timelines, expectations—can be a quiet way of protecting ourselves.

As we move through this year together, we do not have to frame it as a fresh start. We can think of it instead as another stretch of the road we are traveling, carrying what we carry, at a pace we can manage. None of us need concern ourselves with ‘doing grief’ perfectly. We are simply continuing—and that is enough.