SURREY ROCKS - NOV/DEC 2026 - Magazine - Page 116
turkey. You can love your family and still answer briefly. Warmth
and boundaries are not opposites. They are simply the mature
version of both.
New Year's Eve deserves its own paragraph, because it is the
worst night of the year to judge your life. There is a pressure to be
somewhere brilliant with someone meaningful, and nobody has
ever felt anything at midnight except relieved it is over. If you are
alone, make it deliberately lovely. A bath, a film, a long message
to someone you love. If you are with someone, remember that
the year changing is a story you tell, not a verdict on your worth.
There is no prize for arriving at January with a partner, and no
penalty for arriving with a plan that is entirely your own.
116 SURREYROCKS | ISSUE 56
Here is what I would love you to take into the bookshop
queues and the family kitchens....Love is not a performance to
be assessed once a year. It is a habit of attention. It is noticing
who makes you feel calm and who makes you feel small.
It is choosing warmth, over and over, for yourself first, because
you cannot pour something you have never allowed yourself to
receive. Whether you spend this Christmas in a crowded room
or in a quiet one, you are already entirely loveable. The work, if
there is any at all, is simply to notice it.
With Love Always,
Nadia x
