It’s the 28th of December.
That strange, slippery day that never quite knows what to do with itself.
Time moves differently today.
Hours stretch.
Minutes wobble.
Your brain loads like a webpage with too many tabs open.
By now, my social battery isn’t low, it’s blinking that threatening red icon, the one that says: “You had a good run. This is the end of the road.”
And yet nothing happened today.
Not really.
But somehow, nothing is the most exhausting thing of all.
Today is the day you drift between rooms without a mission.
You pick up objects you don’t remember putting down.
You stare into the fridge, not for food, but for answers.
(There are none. Just leftovers questioning their own existence.)
There’s a particular type of humour that emerges on the 28th. The dry, slightly delusional kind.
The kind that asks,
“Am I tired? Or am I simply… existing too hard?”
The kind that makes you whisper,
“If someone asks me to ‘pop out quickly,’ I will simply ascend.”
But beneath the humour sits something softer, quieter and more honest.
It’s the identity wobble.
The subtle panic of realising a new year is four sleeps away and you’re still shaped like December.
The thoughts creep in, dramatic and uninvited:
“Do I reinvent myself?”
“Do I move to a different city?”
“Do I retreat to the woods and change my name to Fern?”
“I should be motivated…but I am horizontal.”
It’s almost comical the way we expect clarity while our brains are running on the emotional equivalent of dial-up internet.
And auditors?
We feel this wobble more than most.
We’ve spent twelve months being the stable ones, the structured ones, the “it depends” or “I’ll figure it out” ones.
The world hands us chaos and we hand back order, even when our own inner filing system is…let’s say, under revision.
So when the 28th arrives with its strange hush, its post-celebration emptiness, its “what now?” energy when our minds finally catch the backlog.
The thoughts we postponed.
The feelings we postponed.
The truth we postponed.
All the things we didn’t have the bandwidth to feel suddenly take a number and line up.
This is why today feels like a hangover without the party.
A fog without the storm.
A landing without the flight.
And in the middle of that fog, something else appears. Something almost beautiful.
A rare kind of stillness.
Not peaceful, not yet.
But honest.
You don’t need clarity today.
Or enthusiasm.
Or a five-point plan for 2026.
You don’t need to glow or stretch or evolve.
You just need to be in this strange, tired poetry of the 28th, where the world quiets down and for once, isn’t asking you to shine.
It’s the pause.
The deep breath before the page turns.
The emotional gravity settling after a long orbit around the sun.
You are not behind.
You are not late.
You are simply human in the gentle undoing after a year of holding everything together.
And that is enough, so I just want to now wish you a very Happy New Year, say well done and may all your audit dreams comes true in 2026.
Until next week,
Christiaan
P.S. If today feels like poetic exhaustion wrapped in mild confusion, reply with your favourite emoji. No words needed, we’re all in the same soft blur.
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