This was the year that tried to swallow me whole.

 Deadlines with teeth. Expectations with claws. Coffee cups multiplying like gremlins on my desk. Somewhere around March, I realized I was no longer living the year—I was being consumed by it, one anxious bite at a time.

Every time I thought I’d found my footing, the ground politely turned to quicksand. The calendar flipped faster than I could cross things off. My inbox started breeding like rabbits. And still I kept saying yes—yes to new projects, yes to collaborations, yes to saving everyone’s sinking ship while my own was quietly taking on water.

Then November knocked on the door, smug as a cat. “Still standing?” it asked. I nodded, pretending not to notice the smoke rising from the remains of my to-do list.

The Feast of Too Much

Some years feel like a seven-course meal of chaos—served without utensils, and you’re expected to smile while chewing. This was mine.

I said yes to everything because I was afraid of what might happen if I didn’t. I chased every spark of inspiration like a moth with commitment issues. I poured more time, more energy, more self into everything until the line between passion and exhaustion blurred into something unholy.

And then came the crash. The kind that isn’t loud but hollow—the moment you realize you’ve been sprinting so long you forgot why you started running. The kind of burnout that doesn’t look like flames, but like smoke curling out of the corners of your own mind.

I told myself I was fine. That it was just a busy season. That all I needed was one good night’s sleep, a few days off, a slightly better coffee ratio. (Narrator: it was not fine.)

When the Spells Stopped Working

Normally, I can brute-force my way through chaos. A little sarcasm, a lot of caffeine, and the comforting delusion that I thrive under pressure—it’s been my go-to survival kit for years. But around midsummer, none of it worked.

The playlists that usually rescued me from creative fog suddenly grated on my nerves. The candles that used to make my workspace feel warm and focused just sputtered out halfway through. Even writing—my oldest form of alchemy—started feeling like an obligation rather than oxygen.

It was unnerving, that silence. Like the static had finally cleared, and what was left was… nothing. Just the hum of exhaustion and the question that won’t leave: What if this version of me has nothing left to give?

That was my reckoning. Not a meltdown, not a grand revelation—just a quiet realization that I couldn’t keep pretending the same old tricks would save me from a year determined to devour me.

The Spellbook of Survival

Recovery didn’t arrive as an epiphany. It stumbled in slowly, wearing fuzzy socks and carrying a mug I forgot I owned. It looked suspiciously like rest—something I’d labeled “lazy” for years and filed under “maybe later.”

So I started rebuilding, one small act at a time. Not resolutions. Not goals. Just little spells disguised as self-preservation.

The Candle Spell:

 Light something every night—not to be productive, not to chase inspiration, but to prove the day happened. Even if all you did was survive it. Some nights the candle burned bright. Some nights it struggled. Both counted.

The Boundaries Charm:

 A friend once told me that “no” is a complete sentence, not a door that needs decorating. I started saying it out loud. To extra commitments. To unrealistic expectations. To that inner critic who thinks “rest” is a dirty word. Turns out, boundaries glow in the dark.

The Gratitude Sigil:

 Every night, one line in a notebook: something that didn’t destroy me today. Sometimes it was profound (“a kind message from a reader”). Sometimes it was petty (“the printer jammed, but I didn’t throw it into the sea”). Gratitude doesn’t have to be pretty. It just has to exist.

The Mirror Ritual:

 Look yourself in the eye—literally. No pep talk, no toxic positivity, just acknowledgment. “You look tired,” I’d tell my reflection. “But you’re still here.” That was enough.

The Silence Incantation:

 Instead of forcing sound into the quiet, I started letting silence do what it does best—heal. No music, no background noise, no pressure to fill every minute. I found out that when you stop talking over your own exhaustion, it tells you exactly what it needs.

How to Be Unswallowed

There’s a strange power in surviving the year that almost ate you. It teaches you what’s essential—not the grand, dramatic essentials, but the quiet ones: sleep that feels like forgiveness, conversations that don’t require performance, mornings that start with something other than dread.

I stopped trying to win the year. Instead, I decided to outlast it. I learned that sometimes endurance is its own kind of magic—less like lightning, more like embers that refuse to die out no matter how hard the wind blows.

The funny thing about being consumed by chaos is that it forces you to decide what you’re unwilling to lose. Somewhere between the deadlines and the burnout, I rediscovered the small rituals that tether me to myself: a slow walk, a handwritten note, a cup of something warm that doesn’t need to be earned.

No epilogue. No transformation montage. Just this: I’m still here. And this time, I don’t want to be everywhere. I just want to be present.

For Anyone Still in the Belly of the Year

If you’re reading this with a half-empty mug and a calendar that won’t stop shouting at you, take a breath. You’re not alone in the monster’s mouth.

Maybe your year looks different—family chaos, creative drought, endless “almosts.” But if you’ve been swallowed by circumstance, I promise there’s still light in there somewhere. The kind that flickers, stumbles, refuses to go out.

Start small. One act of defiance against the exhaustion. One moment of stillness that belongs only to you. One thing that reminds you that you exist outside the storm.

The year may have sharp teeth, but it also has a terrible attention span. Eventually, it gets bored of trying to eat you. And when it does, you’ll crawl back out—singed, maybe, but unbroken.

Because survival isn’t glamorous, and it isn’t loud. It’s the quiet decision to keep showing up for yourself, even when the world keeps changing the rules.

The candle that wouldn’t stay lit? It’s still burning now. Not bright. But steady.

 And for now, that’s enough.