Every December, there is a shift in the air. Some people call it “reflection.” Some call it “reset mode.” My brain calls it “burn the fields, salt the earth, and make the new year fear me.” I always slide into this season with the same itchy feeling under my skin, like I am outgrowing something but cannot name what. This time, though, I decided to stop guessing and start pruning everything that felt stale, heavy, or held together purely by guilt.
This year’s purge was not gentle.
I started with Facebook, which had become a digital museum of people I do not talk to, groups I joined in moments of fleeting enthusiasm, and Pages that have not posted anything relevant since the early Obama administration. I deleted, unfollowed, and left with the enthusiasm of someone finally clearing out a haunted attic. The silence afterward felt like breathing room. I did not realize how much noise I had normalized until it was gone.
Then I dove into my email archives. That was a spiritual experience. I am talking thousands of messages from eight lifetimes ago. Old projects, expired plans, newsletters I have never read and never will, automated receipts from 2020, emotional debris from people who no longer exist in my life. I deleted entire years. If an anthropologist ever excavates my Gmail, they are going to think I ascended in 2023.
From there, I backed up every important file from 2025, and because I was a lazy and/or forgetful asshole, I backed up 2024 too. If my computer explodes tomorrow, at least my chaos is organized.
I pruned Discord next. Servers I only skim, brands I buy from once a year, communities I joined on a whim, and hobby spaces I abandoned without even noticing. Everything unnecessary got muted or removed. My brain felt lighter. The notifications that scream at me now are ones I know I have to pay attention to.
Phone apps? Gone. Whole categories wiped off the screen. Camera roll? Purged. Screenshots I meant to save for later? Deleted. Photos of objects I planned to buy? Deleted. Ten copies of the same blurry ferret? The favorites made the cut. The duplicates did not. My phone finally feels navigable.
Then came the physical purge, which was the most satisfying and also the most chaotic. I trudged several armloads of junk out of my office and cleared my space with the kind of focus usually reserved for crime scene cleaners. I kept only the things I use and the things that make me smile. Yes, my plush fox still sits by my monitor. Yes, my Frustration Crustacean remains on guard. Some anchors stay because they feel like home. I replaced the mouse that kept losing connection, which felt like both a victory and a personal betrayal.
My planning system for ’26 is also getting a renovation. I am actually using Apple Reminders, Notes, and Calendar like a real functioning adult instead of treating them as vague suggestion boxes. I downloaded a new brain dump app setup and deleted the old ones that never earned their keep. My Traveler’s Notebooks have retired due to the realization of "where the hell am I going to keep all this shit and what if I want to look tit again on a whim? What, am I supposed to UNPACK to look at August's pages?". My digital tools are finally aligned with how my brain actually works instead of how I wish it worked.
With one week left in the year, I am turning my attention to the rest of my house. Closets. Drawers. Cabinets. All the things that have quietly accumulated because I was too busy or too overwhelmed to deal with them. It feels like taking inventory of a life I am choosing to carry forward rather than a life dragging behind me.
And then there is my Word of the Year. I have not chosen one in eight years. It always felt forced. Performed. But this time, one came to me and refused to leave.
Genesis.
A beginning. A starting point. A creation. A reclamation. A choice to rebuild from something deeper than exhaustion or obligation. A reminder that I am not returning to an old version of myself. I am creating the next one. And, funny enough, a pun of my name if you squint.
This is the first year in a long time where prepping for the new year has not felt like punishment or performance. It feels like shedding old skin. It feels like stepping out of the version of me that survived the last few years and stepping into the version ready to live the next one.
I am not polishing myself to become someone new. I am clearing space so I can finally become myself.
