You're Allowed to Let This Holiday Season Be Different

Published: Nov 25, 2025

There's this invisible rule that says you have to power through grief, show up perfectly for the holidays, and keep all your commitments, especially as women.

But what if that rule is actually destroying the very peace we're desperate to create?

Picture this: You're holding a glass of water. Not heavy at first. But hold it for an hour, your arm starts shaking. Hold it all day, and your whole body cramps. The weight didn't change — but time made it unbearable. 

That's what happened when my mother-in-law passed. 

Life handed me this pause, and instead of setting the glass down, I almost kept holding it. Almost powered through launch mode, holiday obligations, the whole performance. Until I realized: the pause wasn't interrupting my life — it was protecting it.

Grief sorts life for you. It makes the essential things shine and lets the nonessential fall away. So instead of adding more to December, what if we subtracted? What if less chaos actually created more calm?

Less chaos, more calm.

There’s a point every year when the world seems to speed up — invitations, expectations, deadlines, traditions, and all the invisible emotional labor that lands squarely on the shoulders of women. Especially ADHD women in midlife.

But this year, life handed me a pause long before the holiday season even began.

We got the call that my mother-in-law had been given her last rites. Within hours, we packed bags and drove north to be at her bedside. What followed were seven long days of sitting, waiting, comforting, and simply being as she slowly slipped away — and another week of funeral arrangements, family gatherings, and the kind of exhaustion that settles deep in the bones.

There was no question in my mind what to do.

I’ve got my values written right at my desk: health, family, freedom. But I live them now so I don’t need that visual reminder.

I pressed the pause button.

Work, my launch of the ADHD Focus Framework, anything that wasn’t essential to my family or my own nervous system.

It wasn’t an easy two weeks. But it was an easy decision.

When Loss Teaches You to Slow Down