In recent years, I have often found myself alone during the festive season, and this year is no exception. What’s different now is that I no longer feel the sadness I once felt. It’s as if my body learned this rhythm long before my mind caught up. December comes, people gather, and I stay where I am—quiet, alone, unaffected on the surface.

At least that’s what it looks like.

Sometimes I question if I’ve lost my ability to feel. Or have I simply grown too comfortable in my solitude? I don’t know the answer. I only know that being alone no longer makes me sad. It doesn’t ache the way it used to. It feels familiar—almost safe. And that thought scares me more than loneliness ever did.

There was a time when I counted the days, hoping this year would be different. When I waited for an invitation, a call, a sign that I was remembered. Somewhere along the way, I stopped waiting. Not because I found peace, but because waiting began to feel heavier than being alone.

Now, I exist in this in-between space—not sad enough to grieve, not fulfilled to celebrate. Just… here. Present. Observing. Wondering if comfort has quietly given way to emotional distance. If self-protection has slowly become isolation.

And yet, even in this uncertainty, I can’t call myself empty. I feel deeply in other ways. I think deeply. I notice things others rush past. Maybe this isn’t numbness. It’s an adaptation. Maybe it’s survival dressed as calm.

As this festive season passes, I am learning that not every story needs a resolution. Some chapters exist simply to be lived, not explained. I may not know whether I’ve grown stronger or just more accustomed to being alone, but I know this: my quiet does not mean I am absent from life.

It means I am still here, still aware, still open in my own way. And maybe one day, this solitude will soften into something else. Until then, I allow myself to exist without apology—alone, yes, but still alive.

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Lelo