There are roughly two weeks left in the year, and somehow it feels like both a sprint and a marathon.
Or maybe it’s neither. Maybe it’s one of those airport moving walkways where you’re technically in motion but also weirdly standing still, staring at the floor, wondering how you got here so fast.

I know I have things to do. Lists. Many lists.  I love lists. Deadlines. Those I don’t like. Loose ends. Yep. Many of those as the year ends.
Yet I find my time slipping away into tiny, unplanned adventures. It’s like I’m looking up long-lost friends. People I haven’t spoken to in years. Faces I recognize instantly. Names that still carry emotional weight.

Isn’t now the time we do that?

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear that scene from When Harry Met Sally, when Harry talks about Auld Lang Syne. How no one really knows what the lyrics mean, can’t spell it, can’t translate it, yet everyone sings it anyway. Loudly. Off-key. With conviction.

And maybe that’s the point.

Auld Lang Syne is really about remembering. About not forgetting people who mattered. About raising a glass to shared history, even if you don’t quite know how to articulate what it meant or why it still does.

I think a lot of us use this strange end-of-year liminal space to reach backward while time pushes us forward. We scroll. We search. We wonder. How are they? Where did life take them? What happened after we stopped being in each other’s orbit?

Psychologically speaking, it makes sense. The end of the year activates reflection, meaning-making, unfinished emotional business. Our brains want narrative closure or at least a gentle footnote.

But here’s the tension. How do you do that. This remembering, reconnecting, reckoning while also racing toward deadlines and resolutions? Is this moment a marathon that requires pacing and endurance? Or a sprint where you just put your head down and barrel through?

I honestly can’t tell.

Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s neither.
Maybe it’s a relay, where we pass the baton between who we were, who we are, and who we’re still becoming occasionally dropping it, occasionally stopping to wave at someone we recognize from an earlier lap.

So if I seem distracted right now, it’s not procrastination. It’s archaeology. I’m digging through layers of time. Seeing what still holds meaning. Noticing who still tugs at the thread.

The year will end whether I’m ready or not. Time will go where it always goes forward and unapologetically.

But if I pause to remember someone along the way?
If I hum a song I don’t fully understand? If I reach out, even imperfectly?

Well maybe that’s exactly how we’re meant to spend these last two weeks.

Now excuse me while I finish my to-do list. Or look up one more name. Whichever comes first.