The Long December We Carry Inside Us

There’s a line in the Counting Crows song A Long December that always hits a little harder this time of year:
“And it’s been a long December…”

Most of us feel that in our bones.

December has a way of collecting everything we didn’t know we were still carrying, the shame we didn’t have words for, the regret we quietly tucked away, the distance we noticed but didn’t know how to close. The unfinished conversations. The arguments we meant to repair but didn’t. The ways we slowly drifted from ourselves or each other.

When couples come into therapy this time of year, they often describe not one big rupture but a hundred subtle ones. No single moment caused the drift, it was the slow accumulation of unspoken feelings, swallowed needs, and the fear that bringing things up might make them worse.

If December is feeling “long” for you, maybe it’s not actually December.
Maybe it’s the emotional backlog, the things that hurt quietly.

The good news?
Awareness is the doorway to repair, not a punishment for falling short.

As you look toward the end of the year, consider gently asking yourself:

• What have I avoided naming because I didn’t want to be a burden?

• Where do I need repair or reconnection, with myself or someone I love?

• What part of me feels tired, guilty, or unseen?

You’re allowed to pause.
You’re allowed to tell the truth.
You’re allowed to begin again.

Why This Song Still Finds Me Every December

I was listening to A Long December the other day while I was working, and something in it stopped me for a moment. It wasn’t dramatic, just that familiar pull the song seems to have this time of year. There’s an emotional truth inside it that finds me every December, no matter how many years pass.

It’s not just nostalgia.
It’s not just the season.
It’s the way this song manages to hold so many human experiences at once:
the ache of distance, the sting of regret, the weight of another long year, and the quiet, almost reluctant hope that things can shift.

Every time I hear it, I’m reminded of the emotional landscapes we carry, the parts of us that feel worn down, the moments we wish we could redo, the shame or guilt we tuck away, the relationships where distance grew in the spaces we weren’t paying attention to. And also the longing… for reconnection, for softness, for something warmer than what we’ve been living in.

So this December, I wanted to spend a little time with the themes the song brings up for me, not to dissect it, but to sit with the emotional honesty it invites. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing short reflections on some of these themes: the accumulation of the year, the grief that resurfaces in winter, the drift that happens inside relationships, the quiet hope that refuses to disappear, and the seasonal cycles we move through as humans.

If you read one post or all of them, my hope is that something in this series helps you pause, breathe, and reflect on your own story from this past year. Not with pressure, and not with judgment, but with the kind of gentle honesty this song seems to call out in all of us.

Sometimes we need a moment of reflection.
Sometimes we need a song.
And sometimes we need a reminder that it’s okay to begin again.